Technology Lead, Platforms & Ecommerce Engineering

We believe in the power and joy of learning

At Cengage, our employees have a direct impact in helping students around the world discover the power and joy of learning. We are bonded by our shared purpose – driving innovation that helps millions of learners improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.  

Cengage's portfolio of businesses supports student choice by providing a range of pathways that help learners achieve their goals and lead a choice-filled life.

Our culture values inclusion, engagement, and discovery

Our business is driven by our strong culture, and we know that creating an inclusive workplace is absolutely essential to the success of our company and our learners, as well as our individual well-being. We recognize the value of diverse perspectives in everything we do, and strive to ensure employees of all levels and backgrounds feel empowered to voice their ideas and bring their authentic selves to work. We achieve these priorities through programs, benefits, and initiatives that are integrated into the fabric of how we work every day. To learn more, please see https://www.cengagegroup.com/about/inclusion-and-belonging/.  

What you'll do here:

In your role as Technology Lead, Platforms & Ecommerce Engineering within our Digital organization, you are responsible for building and operating our ecommerce platforms and the capabilities that enable them, including CMS, identity, and enterprise integrations. You will lead a lean, high-performing team using agile principles to design, integrate, and operate scalable, reliable solutions. You will partner closely with enterprise stakeholders to support delivery of customer-facing experiences. With a strong focus on reliability and scalability, you will ensure platforms are stable, secure, and performant while enabling continuous improvement. You will also help advance how AI is applied within engineering workflows to improve efficiency. 

As the Technology Lead, you will divide your time between team leadership and hands-on development, leading engineers while contributing directly to delivery. You will operate in a cross-functional, agile environment, working closely with Experience Engineering, IT, Marketing, Design, and DevOps to align on priorities and execution. You will collaborate with other technology leads to provide technical direction and alignment across teams, and must be comfortable adapting your leadership style to the situation, leading when needed and contributing as an individual engineer when appropriate.  

Job Duties

• Drive iterative delivery using agile methodologies

• Lead development and operation of core commerce platforms and supporting capabilities (CMS, identity, integrations)

• Define, prioritize, and communicate work clearly across Experience Engineering and stakeholders

• Design and build backend services and APIs to support transaction flows

• Own integrations across enterprise platforms including ecommerce (currently SAP), CRM (Salesforce), identity (Okta), and marketing systems

• Contribute directly to critical development and integration work

• Partner with Experience Engineering to enable efficient use of platform capabilities

• Ensure services are reliable, secure, and performant through strong testing and quality practices

• Monitor performance and integration health across critical flows

• Collaborate with DevOps on environments and delivery practices as needed

• Stay current with backend, integration, and AI-assisted development practices

• Apply AI-assisted approaches to improve efficiency and delivery quality

• Build a focused, accountable, high-performing team culture  

Skills

Required

• Bachelor degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent combination of education and recent relevant work experience required

• 5+ years in a technical leadership or team lead role, including developing technology strategies and driving innovation

• Strong experience with backend development, API design, and integration patterns

• Experience working with ecommerce and CMS platforms

• Experience integrating with enterprise platforms such as Salesforce, SAP, identity providers, or marketing systems

• Strong understanding of system design, scalability, and reliability

• Experience working in agile teams

• Strong communication skills  

Preferred

• Experience with headless CMS and composable architectures

• Experience with event-driven architecture or middleware

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS or similar)

• Experience using AI-assisted development tools 

What Success Looks Like

• Stable, reliable ecommerce platforms with minimal downtime

• Reliable execution of critical ecommerce flows (pricing, cart, checkout, orders)

• High-quality, reusable APIs that enable rapid frontend development

• Seamless integrations supporting end-to-end ecommerce experiences

• Efficient, predictable delivery of platform capabilities

• Reduced integration friction for Experience Engineering

Key Expectations & Tradeoffs

• Prioritize reliability and scalability while enabling delivery speed

• Balance robustness with pragmatic implementation

• Operate effectively in a lean team environment

• Work across boundaries with Experience Engineering with shared ownership where needed

• Focus on enabling experiences, not overbuilding platforms

• Use AI to improve efficiency, not as a shortcut for fundamentals  

Cengage is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified individuals. Our job applicants are considered regardless of any classification protected by applicable federal, state, provincial or local laws.  

Cengage is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities including during our job application process. If you are an applicant with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in our job application process, please contact us at [email protected].  

About Cengage

Cengage, a global education technology company serving millions of learners, provides affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready. For more than 100 years, we have enabled the power and joy of learning with trusted, engaging content, and now, integrated digital platforms. We serve the higher education, workforce skills, secondary education, English language teaching and research markets worldwide. Through our scalable technology, including MindTap and Cengage Unlimited, we support all learners who seek to improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.  

Compensation

At Cengage Group, we take great pride in our commitment to providing a comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package designed to support and empower our employees. Click here to learn more about our Total Rewards Philosophy.

The full base pay range has been provided for this position. Individual base pay will vary based on work schedule, qualifications, experience, internal equity, and geographic location.  Sales roles often incorporate a significant incentive compensation program beyond this base pay range.

In this position,  you will be eligible to participate in the company’s discretionary incentive bonus program.  This position's bonus target amount, which is not guaranteed and is dependent on individual performance and overall company results among other factors, is provided below.