About OpenSesame
OpenSesame’s mission is to help develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. We do this by delivering a comprehensive catalog of eLearning courses from the world’s top publishers. We add value to customers throughout their entire learning journey.
While it appears to most people that we just sell training courses (over 40,000 of them), what we really offer is the opportunity for companies to upgrade the skills of their workforce.
We are at a pivotal time in our growth as we expand our engineering capabilities and invest in building strong, collaborative development teams. This role is part of that effort—designed for early-career engineers eager to build their skills through hands-on work and mentorship.
Learn more about us here.
About the Job
As an Associate Software Engineer at OpenSesame, you will join a fully remote team and contribute to both new and existing products that support our eLearning marketplace. You'll pair and team program with experienced engineers using Extreme Programming (XP) practices such as test-driven development (TDD), continuous deployment, and evolutionary design.
You will work across the full stack with mentorship, gaining experience in our modern TypeScript, Node.js, and React environment while learning to navigate legacy systems like Drupal and Angular. This role is ideal for someone who is just starting their professional career or who has 1–2 years of professional experience and is excited to grow technical skills and contribute to a strong team culture.
Performance Objectives
In your first 90 days:
Summary: Get fully integrated into the team’s workflow, develop a high-level understanding of the product and architecture (including legacy systems), and start participating in collaborative development.
- Team Integration: Build relationships with engineers on the Marketplace team. Learn team workflows by participating in pairing and mobbing sessions to learn the product and development environment.
- Technical Contribution: Write simple code and debug errors with guidance from senior engineers to learn the legacy Drupal 7/Angular system and come up to speed on modernization efforts using TypeScript, Node.js, and React.
- Skill Development: Continue to develop your technical skills and begin to apply test-driven development (TDD) and continuous deployment to ensure high-quality, maintainable solutions with the help of senior engineers.
- Follow Team Processes: Engage fully in the team's agile ceremonies, retrospectives, and discussions. Participate in small sub-teams that use XP practices, including test-driven development (TDD) and pairing/mobbing.
Within 6 months:
Summary: Begin taking on ownership of operational responsibilities, deepen your understanding of the team’s codebase and testing practices, and grow your confidence in delivering and supporting production code.
- System Understanding: Develop a mental model of the Marketplace architecture, including legacy and modern systems, and understand the high-level relationships between key components and dependencies.
- Release & On-Call Experience: Participate in the on-call rotation and pair with a teammate as release captain for a legacy system deployment. Learn how to triage issues based on the mental model of the system that you are developing.
- Collaborative Growth: Continue working closely with peers in pairing and mobbing sessions. Contribute to planning sessions with more senior engineers to break down complex work into smaller, end-to-end user stories (vertical slices) that deliver value incrementally.
- Test Practices: Gain confidence in applying test-driven development (TDD) and begin learning the team’s testing patterns and frameworks, including sociable unit tests and narrow integration tests.
By the end of your first year:
Summary: You are comfortable working across much of the team’s codebase and are beginning to develop deeper expertise in a specific area. You take initiative on small projects, contribute to improving team processes, and apply XP Practices with increasing confidence.
- Codebase Confidence: Troubleshoot and contribute to many parts of the team’s codebase. Begin to develop recognized expertise in a specific area of the software, becoming a go-to contributor for that domain.
- Ownership & Leadership: Volunteer to lead small, well-defined efforts that deliver value to the product. Proactively seek opportunities to improve team workflows and the development system, collaborating with senior engineers or your manager to implement changes.
- Delivering Quality: Apply test-driven development (TDD) and team testing patterns fluently. Use defensive programming techniques—including paranoiac telemetry, unhappy path thinking, and fail-fast principles—to build reliable, maintainable solutions.
Team Collaboration & Communication: Embrace collective ownership of code, documentation and outcomes, taking pride in shared success and supporting improvements to code written by others. Communicate clearly and respectfully in team discussions, practicing active listening, defending a contrary stance constructively, and building on others’ ideas to foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.
Location: This position can be based anywhere in the US. We operate as a remote-first company and invest in all-company in-person meetings several times a year.
Performance Driven: We're looking for self-starters with a track record of delivering excellent results, but we're highly selective about who we hire. We don't focus on typical job requirements, instead, we're interested in specific examples from your past experiences. All positions can be based anywhere in the US, and require up to 15 days of travel per year, with senior management and leadership teams requiring up to 35 days.
Compensation: The pay range for this position is generally between $98,000-$119,000 per year and depends on experience. At OpenSesame, we offer a comprehensive benefits package to employees upon hire, including professional development, ISOs, health insurance, 401(k) matching, and paid time off. We carefully consider a wide range of compensation factors, relying on market data to determine compensation and consider your specific job family, background, skills, and experience. We prioritize pay transparency, fairness, and equity to create a positive and inclusive work environment, regularly reviewing our compensation practices to align with our values and goals.
Equal Employment Opportunity: OpenSesame is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer that values and welcomes diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of various legally protected characteristics, including criminal history, and strive to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. We prioritize safety and security and may use your information accordingly, and you can contact us for assistance or accommodations during the job application process. For more information on our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, click here.
Pay Transparency: At OpenSesame, we prioritize pay transparency, fairness, and equity to create a positive and inclusive work environment, regularly reviewing our compensation.
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