Create is a group of cross-functional teams responsible for building and evolving how educators author tasks and assessments. Create Core is the platform team within Create that builds the shared foundations the authoring applications are made from: a rich text editing library, canonical item and task data models, a centralized metadata service, and APIs/interfaces for interacting with assessment data.
Core’s users are other engineering teams as it builds and maintains foundational libraries and services for our applications. Its repositories run as an internal open-source project that engineers can propose changes to. The team does critical work that the rest of the ecosystem depends on, so quality, developer experience, and accessibility are fundamental aspects of the role.
As Engineering Director, Create Core, you will lead the platform team at the center of College Board’s authoring ecosystem. This is direct team leadership: you will manage a small group of experienced engineers, work closely with Product to define the roadmap, and be accountable for team health, delivery, and the long-term coherence of the platform.
The role asks you to treat the platform as a product. Your users are the engineers on Create’s application teams, and success looks like those teams shipping faster because Core’s foundations are solid, well-documented, and easy to adopt. You will prioritize Core’s investments against real application needs and steward the contribution model that lets consuming teams help build what they use.
Leaders in this space are expected to operate at or near a senior engineer level in system design and code quality, with the ability to review code, assess technical tradeoffs, and guide teams toward sound implementation decisions. You will partner closely with the domain’s Principal Engineer on technical strategy, with application engineering directors on adoption and boundaries, and with product and design leaders on where the platform goes next. Success in this role is measured by the health and effectiveness of the Core team, the trust application teams place in the platform, the degree to which shared foundations reduce duplicated work, and the environment you create for engineers to learn, experiment, and do their best work.