Development Team Lead

THE ROLE: Development Team Lead

American Student Assistance™ (ASA) is national nonprofit that is changing the way kids learn about careers and prepare for their futures through access to career-readiness information and experiences.

ASA fulfills its mission through free digital-first direct experiences, philanthropy, advocacy, thought leadership, groundbreaking research, and impact investing. We believe that exploring career possibilities, as early as middle school, and providing access to education-to-career pathways aligned with one’s passions and goals will result in greater confidence and long-term success for all students.

We are looking for a hands-on Development Team Lead to drive the technical vision, architecture, and development of our direct-to-consumer web platforms. You will play a key role in building scalable digital solutions from scratch in an early-stage, high-growth environment. Helping build a new team and leading it, you will be responsible for full-stack development, vendor collaboration, and ensuring seamless integration between architecture, design, UX, frontend, backend, security, privacy, and cloud infrastructure.

This role is ideal for a technical leader who thrives in a fast-paced environment, enjoys both strategic planning and hands-on coding, and is passionate about delivering modern, user-friendly digital experiences.

You are a self-motivated, versatile, hands-on technical leader who is comfortable both building from the ground up and guiding a team. You have a strong background in full-stack development and have successfully worked in early-stage or high-growth environments, where agility and problem-solving are key. You can readily understand users’ business challenges, and you have the resourcefulness, creativity, strategic thinking and desire to address those challenges and to hold a pivotal role in designing, building, enhancing and maintaining web and digital solutions for a target audience consisting of youth and young adults.

What You’ll Do:

• Architect, develop, and scale full-stack web platforms from the ground up, ensuring high performance, security, and maintainability.
• Hire, lead and mentor a small team of developers, ensuring best practices in agile development, DevOps, and code quality.
• Work with internal team and external vendors to plan and execute the development life-cycle, while accounting for scope changes, cost considerations, and milestone commitments.
• Work closely with design teams, UX experts, and external vendors to implement intuitive, user-friendly interfaces, and robust, scalable platforms.
• Collaborate with product managers and stakeholders to define technical requirements and product roadmaps.
• Design and manage modern frontend and backend systems using technologies like React, Node.js, Material UI, and databases (SQL & NoSQL).
• Partner with external vendors to design and manage cloud infrastructure and hosting on AWS or Azure, optimizing for performance, security, and cost efficiency.
• Ensure strong CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and scalable deployments in an agile environment.
• Make strategic decisions about third-party integrations, frameworks, and scalability solutions.
• Help writing relevant application documentation, operational procedures and best practices, in relevant documentation systems and formats.
• Balance hands-on development with technical leadership, actively coding while guiding the team’s growth.

About You:

Technical Requirements:

• 4 years of experience in full-stack development, with a strong background in building web platforms from scratch.
• 3 years of experience in modern frontend frameworks (TypeScript, React, Material UI or similar) and backend development (Node.js, Express, APIs).
• Experience with designing and building React component libraries.
• Strong experience in databases (SQL, NoSQL) and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Firebase, or equivalent).
• Familiarity with UX principles and design processes, with the ability to collaborate with designers and translate concepts into code.
• Proficiency in agile methodologies, CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, and clou deployments.
• Strong troubleshooting skills, and experience with writing software unit tests.

Experience:

• Leadership experience in early-stage, high-growth settings, and in agile development teams.
• Experience working with design and development vendors, supporting their work and ensuring seamless and collaborative cross-organizational integration.
• Hands-on approach with the ability to balance strategic decision-making with coding responsibilities.
• Excellent communication and problem-solving skills, with the ability to work cross-functionally.
• You are strategic yet hands-on—capable of making architectural decisions while actively coding alongside your team.
• Building complex web platforms from scratch and enjoy the challenge of scaling them.
• Comfortable working with design and development vendors, ensuring quality and seamless integration.
• You thrive in fast-moving, agile environments, and can balance speed, quality, and scalability.

Why ASA?

ASA offers a wide range of perks and benefits to Associates, including comprehensive medical, dental, and vision healthcare plans, a retirement plan (plus match), weekly lunches, commuter benefits, and tuition reimbursement.

We also heavily prioritize a healthy work/life balance, which is why we offer all full-time associates generous PTO options, Summer Fridays (every Friday off between Memorial Day and Labor Day), a company holiday break between December 25th and January 1st, and even a paid sabbatical after five years of employment.

ASA works in a Hybrid schedule (2) two days a week in our Boston HQ. We prioritize strategic thinkers, collaborators, and work/life pros who are looking to help make a difference in kid's education and career goals.