Senior/Lead Software Engineer

Employment Type: Contract (with potential for renewal) Location Type: Remote Salary: Not Specified

Position Overview

Upwork is the world's work marketplace, connecting businesses with skilled professionals. This role is within Upwork’s Hybrid Workforce Solutions (HWS) Team, a global group supporting Upwork's business operations. We are seeking a passionate Senior/Lead Software Engineer to design and build highly performant, robust systems that create outstanding user experiences and impact the professional lives of millions. If you enjoy solving complex problems, identifying scalability issues, implementing engineering best practices, and finding creative solutions, we encourage you to apply.

Work/Project Scope

• Collaborate with project stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver high-quality solutions.
• Design, develop, test, and maintain scalable and robust server-side logic, databases, and APIs.
• Develop, test, and maintain high-quality front-end code for web applications using TypeScript or JavaScript.
• Utilize modern front-end frameworks such as Vue.js (preferred), Nuxt, React.js, or Angular.
• Optimize front-end performance and ensure cross-browser compatibility.
• Integrate front-end interfaces with backend APIs for seamless data flow.
• Enhance the codebase through quality improvements, documentation, and technical debt reduction.
• Stay updated on current and emerging technologies.
• Utilize collaborative tools like Gmail, Slack, Confluence, and Jira for communication, documentation, and project management.
• Participate in code reviews and design reviews.
• Document code and technical specifications.
• Analyze system performance, respond to incidents within deadlines, and participate in on-call rotations.
• Contribute to the Scrum process, including sprint planning, daily stand-ups, and retrospective meetings.
• Participate in project-critical meetings and provide regular status updates.
• Manage time independently to achieve project deliverables, estimating approximately 40 hours of effort per week.
• Time Zone Requirement: PST +/-3, or willingness to overlap with 9 am - 3 pm PST.

Requirements (Must-Haves)

• Experience: 8+ years of professional software development experience.
• Languages: Deep knowledge of modern JavaScript (ES6+)/TypeScript, and Python.
• Frameworks: Extensive experience with a modern JS framework (Vue.js preferred, React, or Angular).
• AI/ML: Experience working with AI Agents or extensive experience with LLMs.
• Testing: Experience with unit testing and end-to-end UI testing.
• Accessibility: Basic understanding of accessibility (WCAG) guidelines and engineering principles.
• Soft Skills: Self-motivation, self-organization, and self-education skills.
• Language Proficiency: English at an intermediate level (sufficient to pass a technical interview).
• Backend: Basic knowledge of PHP, server-side JavaScript/TypeScript, or other server-side languages.
• Node.js: Basic knowledge of Node.js backend framework.
• System Design: Basic understanding of system design principles.

Company Information

Upwork is the world's work marketplace, serving everyone from one-person startups to over 30% of the Fortune 100. Our platform enables companies and talent to work together in new ways, unlocking their potential. Last year, more than $3.8 billion of work was done through Upwork by skilled professionals gaining more control and innovating their careers.