Senior Software Engineer Node Js Jobs in Waterloo, IA

About the role:

We're seeking an experienced full-stack senior engineer to work on ClearanceJobs.com, the leading career marketplace for security-cleared professionals. You'll work across a Vue.js frontend, Laravel (PHP) backend, and a MySQL data layer, contributing to multiple interconnected repositories spanning the main web application, internal REST APIs, background job workers, and Terraform-managed infrastructure.

The platform runs on AWS (EC2, RDS, S3, CloudFront, Lambda) and integrates with third-party services for recruiter tooling, identity verification, and analytics. Day-to-day, you'll ship features that shape how recruiters find and engage cleared candidates - candidate search and matching, workflow automation, job posting tools, messaging, and reporting. You'll own work end-to-end, from scoping with product through implementation, testing, and deployment via our CI/CD pipeline, on a small, senior team that values shipping over debating - we make pragmatic trade-offs, move quickly, and lean toward action rather than relitigating decisions.

Why we're hiring for this role:

The ClearanceJobs team needs added capacity to bring new features to market quickly without compromising on quality. We're looking for an engineer who is energized by shipping the highest quality software, someone who finds practical paths through hard or unfamiliar changes rather than treating difficulty as a reason to change course. You'll deliver web application improvements, strengthen our testing posture, drive code quality metrics, contribute to the platform, and implement features efficiently in an established codebase.

In the Short Term, You Will:

Ramp up on Systems and Codebases

Gain familiarity with the product and the infrastructure and codebase which it is composed of.  Develop an understanding of how your team's work fits into the broader picture and the market.

Establish Technical Ownership

Take responsibility for delivering features and changes to systems, providing thoughtful code reviews, and contributing to product and engineering discussions. You will be trusted to make technical decisions and defend them clearly while staying open to feedback.

Collaborate and Align

Work closely with engineers, product management, product design, and other business stakeholders to align priorities and deliver incremental value. Help improve the team's planning and execution rhythm.

In the Long Term, You Will

 Drive Technical Excellence

Help assess and evolve our development practices, our codebases and our team processes to develop a well-architected and robust product. Reduce technical debt, lead by example to drive technical excellence, and contribute to shared engineering standards and improvements.

 Mentor and Elevate your Team

 A senior software engineer at DHI is expected to mento their peers but also accept mentorship, driving greater outcomes and helping grow the technical abilities of those around you.

Deliver Meaningful Business Impact

 Own the end-to-end delivery of new product features that support our business goals and enhance the user experience. Influence the roadmap by advocating for technical investments and providing insights into the planning process to align with delivering long term value.

 What you bring to the team:

• A bias toward delivery. You find a way to ship valuable changes even when the work is large, unfamiliar, or touches code you didn't write.
• Ability to understand the product and ask the right questions to ensure you are aligned with the product vision provided.
• Able to work with the product owners and product designers to incorporate their requirements into engineering solutions.
• Able to work within an agile software development framework and adhere to existing team processes.
• Able to troubleshoot and provide analysis for reports on issues and bugs.
• Able to disagree well with other engineers, raise and articulate concerns clearly, hear the counterargument, and commit to the decision so the team can keep moving.
• Ability to work with cutting edge AI tooling but able to demonstrate equal skills without assistance.

Required:

• Proficiency with strict TypeScript is a must
• js or equivalent reactive front-end framework (React, modern Angular)
• Understanding of state management and component architecture
• Current hands-on experience with Laravel and PHP 8 and REST API development best practices
• Familiarity with AWS EC2, Lambda, API Gateway, S3, SES, CloudFront, and other core AWS services
• Proficiency with relational databases for web applications, managing database migrations and schema management
• Proficiency with E2E testing, integration and unit testing, and CI/CD pipelines (AWS CodeBuild/CodePipeline)
• Docker and containerization fundamentals
• Git version control and collaborative development workflows
• Understanding of authentication/authorization (Sessions, OAuth, SSO) and secure programming best practices

Preferred:

• Familiarity with Recruitment, HR, or ATS domain concepts (workflows, candidate pipelines, job management)
• Experience with real-time features and WebSocket patterns
• Experience with complex form workflows and dialog/modal UI patterns
• Experience with Elasticsearch or OpenSearch.
• Background with large dataset rendering (table virtualization, pagination, search-heavy UIs)
• Experience with application observability and analytics tools.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage AI tools effectively across the modern SDLC - using coding assistants (Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, Kiro, etc.) for implementation, code review, testing, and debugging, with sound judgment about when AI accelerates the work and when it doesn't. 

NOTE: This job description is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of the duties and responsibilities of the job described, nor are they intended to be such a listing of the skills and abilities required to do the job. Rather, they are intended only to describe the general nature of the job as of the date this job description was prepared. Management reserves the right to modify this job in order to meet business needs. 

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.