Lead Software Engineer

Job description

Who We Are

Summer is a Certified B Corp® with a mission to maximize savings for the 46 million Americans burdened by student debt. Summer combines policy expertise with innovative tech to help borrowers simplify college cost planning and student loan repayment, generating $278/month in savings per person and $1.8B in savings for our users to date. Watch our product overview and hear from our members on how Summer has put them on the path to becoming debt free.

Summer has raised $30 million to date from world-class investors, including QED Investors, General Catalyst, Greycroft, Rebalance Capital, SemperVirens, Foundation Capital, Story Ventures, NextView, Flourish Ventures, and the Financial Health Network. We’ve partnered with dozens of clients who pay for Summer to assist their employees and customers, including the city government of Alexandria, Virginia, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Diabetes Association, Asurion, the City of New York, ADP and more.

Your Role

We’re looking for a hands-on Lead Software Engineer to join our growing engineering team. In this role, you will lead a pod of 3-4 engineers and drive the technical execution of major product initiatives from design through deployment. You’ll mentor team members, guide architectural decisions, and collaborate closely with product and design partners to shape our roadmap.

This role is roughly 60% hands-on coding and 40% team leadership (architecture, planning, and people management) – the best of both worlds for an engineering leader who still loves to code.

What You’ll Do

• Mentor and manage a team of engineers through thoughtful technical leadership and day-to-day support.
• Review and assess completed work in collaboration with fellow engineering leads to uphold a high bar for quality.
• Clarify complex requirements and help design sustainable, long-term solutions that are maintainable and scalable.
• Lead by example: stay hands-on in the codebase, supporting your team as they build and ship great products.
• Drive product planning, ensuring we commit to initiatives that are realistic, high-impact, and delivered at a high standard.
• Oversee the design, implementation, and maintenance of internal tools and systems to streamline engineering workflows across the organization.
• Collaborate closely with the Head of Engineering, your product management lead, and product design partner to ensure your pod’s work aligns with our values, vision, and long-term goals with a focus on prioritization, double bottom-line impact, and thoughtfully designed experiences.

What We’re Looking For

• 5–7+ years of experience building production-quality web applications and systems.
• Proven ability to own features end-to-end in a full-stack environment (from database to frontend).
• 2-3+ years of previous experience as a team lead or engineering manager in a small or mid-sized team
• Strong technical foundation: you’ve architected complex systems, tackled scaling challenges, and made critical trade-off decisions in previous projects.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly engage both technical and non-technical audiences — including clients, partners, and service providers.
• Excellent collaboration and empathy – you work well cross-functionally (especially with product/design) and care about fostering a supportive team culture.
• A passion for coaching and developing engineering talent – you love helping others grow.
• Demonstrated ability to balance innovation and curiosity with stability and proven foundations
• Experience collaborating across product, design, and analytics to deliver impactful solutions
• Exposure to both startup and enterprise environments, with clear opinions on what works best from each
• Interest in emerging tech (AI tools, modern frameworks) and a habit of staying ahead of the curve.

⭐ Bonus Points

• Experience in mission-driven or fintech companies, or personal connection to our mission of tackling student debt.
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools (e.g. Cursor, ChatGPT etc) and a track record of thoughtfully integrating them into team workflows
• Experience in fintech, payments, or other regulated industry is a plus

Compensation & Benefits

• Base salary: $150k-170K
• Meaningful equity package
• Healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) with employer match
• Student loan repayment contributions
• Flexible time off and remote-friendly culture

Values

We’re proud to be a mission-driven company with an inclusive culture. Our greatest asset is the set of values our team strives to embody every day: empathy, diversity, growth, determination, humility, and fun. Learn more about culture at Summer.

We also offer competitive salaries, significant equity allocations, healthcare coverage, 401(k) plans with an employer match, contribution toward student loan repayment, and flexible vacation/PTO. Summer supports a hybrid, flexible work environment and we welcome applicants from anywhere in the United States.

Sound interesting? We look forward to hearing from you. Join us to help fix the system!

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Summer provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.