About the position
TwinSpires is the premier online horse racing wagering platform in the United States. TwinSpires is owned and operated by Churchill Downs, Inc., and is the official online betting partner of the Kentucky Derby, bringing you more than 148 years of wagering experience. Players can wager through the TwinSpires desktop, mobile, and app-based advance-deposit wagering platforms as well as at retail locations and race tracks across the country. The Lead Software Engineer will work as a part of a larger team to design and develop custom software solutions that meet the needs of the business. This role will also participate as a scrum team member and must join in mutually deliverable goals. They will have to coordinate efforts that maximize the contributions of the group. The ideal candidate will have strong software engineering and problem-solving skills and a desire to write testable and highly scalable solutions. Provides technical leadership and mentoring but does not directly manage team members.
Responsibilities
- Collaborate with peers and team members to design, write, and support user-facing features that further the organization's objectives.
- Deliver features by writing code.
- Identify areas of the technology and architecture that need to be improved/updated. Propose technologies, processes, fixes, etc.
- Help the team identify risks, make them known, and mitigate, if possible.
- Promptly escalate issues, which affect product delivery and quality that are beyond scope of influence.
- Set an example for the team and gain respect by the quality of work, character, and demeanor.
- Help the team avoid and reduce technical debt.
- Mentor new and junior delivery team members.
- Represent the team to management.
- Research new technologies, techniques, and industry developments.
- Interpret and develop meaningful test plans and coordinate with quality assurance engineers to build, execute, and maintain automation scripts using Selenium and other testing tools.
- Identify and document defects discovered during test execution.
- Maintain and utilize Test-Driven Development (TDD) best practices while building custom software solutions.
- Document and troubleshoot defects as required to maintain a successful and resilient platform.
- Design and participate in developing front-end application and back-end business services interaction protocols.
- Champions team upskilling by mentoring, teaching, training, and coaching to improve personal and team best practices and skill sets.
- Other duties as assigned by Management.
Requirements
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite or related software.
- Organizational skills with attention to detail.
- Ability to identify and address the needs of users.
- Thorough understanding of software development best practices and procedures.
- Ability to manage time and prioritize tasks.
- Strong development skills developing in OOP and MVC/MVVM patterns.
- Highly effective oral and written communication; ability to explain complex designs and relationships.
- Ability to be licensed as an Employee by various racing and gaming jurisdictions in which we operate, as required.
- Authorized to work in the US on a full-time basis.
Nice-to-haves
- Bachelor of Science in Information Science/Systems or equivalent experience and industry certifications.
- 5+ years of demonstrated career progression.
- 2+ years of web automation experience, including web service automation.
- Experience with Serverless technologies.
- Recent experience serving as a member of an Agile scrum team.
- Experience with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery concepts.
- Strong communication, written, and interpersonal skills.
- Experience developing consumer-facing applications.
- Experience in the following technologies: AWS Lambda, AWS Dynamo, Java, React, Git, Selenium, Ready! API, XML, Jenkins, TestNG, Maven, CSS3, HTML5, JavaScript.
