Back End Developer (Remote)

Brilliant Microschools is a growing network of accredited online schools serving over 1,500 students across the United States. We build personalized, mastery-based learning systems that adapt to each student’s pace and needs. Our platform combines rigorous curriculum design with modern software, giving teachers strong tools and students clear paths forward.

The Role

We’re looking for an experienced Backend Software Engineer with strong front-end literacy to help us build and evolve our core education platform. This is a backend-first role, but we work entirely in Next.js, so you should be comfortable reasoning across database design, backend logic, and modern React applications.

You’ll work as a contributor within a small, collaborative engineering team. The team shares responsibility for system design and delivery, and decisions are made together. The focus is on building durable systems, migrating legacy infrastructure, and operating AI-driven features that are already production-critical.

You’ll work primarily on Brillow, our learning platform, and Student Grove, our student information system, as we continue moving from a low-code backend to a Postgres-based, TypeScript-first architecture.

What You’ll Do

• Design and implement backend services, APIs, and data models that support a production system used daily by students, teachers, and families.
• Contribute to the migration from a low-code backend to a Postgres and TypeScript application, including schema design, data migrations, and performance tuning.
• Build and maintain AI agents that are part of the core product, including agents that assemble personalized learning plans from curriculum primitives and evaluation agents that score student work against structured rubrics.
• Work closely with frontend engineers and product teams to support modern Next.js patterns, including server components, streaming UIs, and clear data-fetching boundaries.
• Reason about performance tradeoffs across API design, database queries, and frontend data usage, and help the team make pragmatic decisions.
• Participate in a strong engineering culture that emphasizes code review, testing, version control, and disciplined use of AI-assisted development tools.

Requirements

• 6+ years of professional software development experience, with meaningful time spent on production systems.
• Strong experience with TypeScript and backend application development, including API design and relational data modeling.
• Solid experience working with SQL databases, including migrations and evolving schemas over time.
• Experience working in or closely alongside modern React and Next.js applications, with an understanding of server components, data-fetching strategies, and state modeling for complex workflows.
• Clear interest and practical experience in building LLM-backed systems using structured prompts, evaluation loops, and well-defined interfaces.
• Comfort working in a Git-based workflow with strong expectations around code review, testing, and maintainability.
• Ability to collaborate effectively in a small, fast-moving team where software quality and clarity matter.

Nice to Have

• Comfort or interest in working in an AI-native engineering environment, using tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and automated code review agents.
• Experience building or operating agent-based workflows for automation, evaluation, or orchestration.
• Experience designing guardrails, schemas, and validation around AI outputs in production systems.
• Familiarity with realtime or near-realtime data patterns in web applications.
• Experience working in education, healthcare, or other domains where correctness and trust are essential.