Lead Software Engineer

Lead Engineer — Payments Platform Full-time · In person · South Jordan, Utah $110,000–$145,000 + equity + quarterly performance bonuses About Lumion Lumion runs payments and servicing for more than 500 career and technical schools. Our school partners establish their own financing terms and retain ownership of the obligations they originate. Supporting that model required us to build the financial infrastructure ourselves: the ledger, servicing platform, payment workflows, and compliance systems needed to manage tuition accurately throughout the life of each account. We have spent seven years developing that foundation and are NMLS-licensed across 48 states. Over the past two years, Lumion has expanded beyond payments and servicing into the full operating system for career schools. Nearly half of our school partners now use Lumion to manage the student journey from initial interest through graduation. We are growing quickly and need an experienced engineering leader to own the payments vertical as it scales. The Role You will lead the engineering team responsible for Lumion’s payments platform and own the systems behind payment plans, ledgers, allocation, interest accrual, taxes, fees, refunds, chargebacks, ACH returns, settlements, reconciliation, and payoff calculations. You will work closely with our servicing team to improve collection performance and guide the product in the right direction. Together, you will identify where money is being lost, where operational friction is affecting collections, and where new product capabilities can create revenue for Lumion and better outcomes for our schools. This is both a leadership position and a hands-on programming role. You will set direction, make technical and product decisions, and lead experienced engineers—but you will also work inside the code, trace transactions, review designs, and help solve difficult production problems. To prove you have read this: tell us in your application what you would do with a golden banana. There are no wrong answers, except not answering. Our platform currently uses PHP and Laravel. Laravel experience is helpful, but it is not required. We care more about whether you are an excellent programmer with strong engineering judgment and a demonstrated ability to learn an unfamiliar stack. This is a full-time, in-person role in South Jordan, Utah. What You’ll Own The financial integrity of the platform You will be accountable for the correctness and reliability of payments across every contract structure, allocation path, payment method, and reversal. That includes: Ledgers and auditable transaction historiesAllocation across principal, interest, fees, taxes, and other obligationsInterest accrual, payment schedules, balances, and payoff calculationsRefunds, chargebacks, disputes, and ACH returnsSettlement and reconciliationPayment-facilitator integrations and webhooksIdempotency, exception handling, and operational tooling When a ledger does not balance or a payoff is off by a cent, you will lead the investigation until the cause is understood and permanently corrected. Servicing and collection performance The servicing team will be one of your closest partners. You will learn how the product performs after a payment plan goes live and improve workflows for failed payments, delinquent accounts, payment-plan changes, and borrower communication. You will turn recurring servicing problems into durable product improvements—whether that means removing payment friction, giving servicing representatives better tools, improving collection workflows, or ensuring every servicing action is reflected correctly in the ledger. Product direction and revenue growth You will own more than the technical operation of the platform. You will help determine where the payments product goes next. Using product data, servicing feedback, collection performance, and customer needs, you will identify opportunities, decide what the team should build, lead implementation, and measure whether it worked. Success will be measured by outcomes such as: Higher successful-payment and collection ratesMore reliable tuition collection for schoolsRevenue recovered by reducing failed payments and servicing frictionIncreased adoption of revenue-producing productsNew payments capabilities that generate revenue for LumionReduced financial leakage and fewer preventable exceptions We want someone who cares about the business result, not simply whether a feature shipped. Engineering leadership You will lead a team of experienced engineers, establish a high technical standard, make decisions, remove obstacles, and own the team’s outcomes. You will also help grow the team by evaluating candidates, making hiring decisions, and coaching engineers. This is leadership from inside the work—not management from a board of tickets. When something breaks in payments, you will own the response until both the system and the affected financial records are correct. This Is Real Payments Work This is not generic e-commerce payment processing. Integrating a Stripe checkout, storing a payment credential, and processing a purchase is not the depth of payments experience we need. A payment in Lumion may need to be split among fees, interest, principal, taxes, and multiple payment periods in a defined order. Interest may accrue daily. Refunds, disputes, and ACH returns must unwind previous activity correctly. External processor activity must reconcile against internal ledgers and servicing records. A one-cent or one-day error can affect a school’s income, a compliance report, a borrower’s balance, or the accuracy of a payoff quote. The right person finds that responsibility motivating. What We’re Looking For Deep programming experienceYou have at least eight years of professional experience building and shipping production software.Your background may be in PHP, Java, C#, Python, Ruby, Go, TypeScript, or another modern language. The specific language matters less than your programming depth, system-design judgment, and ability to become productive in a substantial codebase.Real payments or financial-systems experienceYou have built or owned production systems involving both money movement and financial recordkeeping.You understand ledgers, reconciliation, settlement, idempotency, payment allocation, refunds, chargebacks, and returns. You can reason about the difference between cash moving through a processor and how that activity must be recorded internally. Proven engineering leadership You have led experienced engineers and been accountable for a team’s technical outcomes. You can set direction, maintain standards, make difficult decisions, coach people, evaluate talent, and communicate clearly when something is at risk. Hands-on technical depth You remain close to the implementation. You can inspect code, reason about data models, review architecture, diagnose difficult production problems, and contribute directly when needed. Product and commercial judgment You understand how engineering decisions affect customer behavior, collection performance, product adoption, and revenue. You can identify an opportunity, form a hypothesis, prioritize the work, lead implementation, and evaluate the result. Strong cross-functional partnership You can work effectively with servicing, collections, compliance, finance, product, support, and company leadership. You listen to the people operating the system every day and turn their knowledge into better product decisions. Significant Pluses An accounting background is a major advantage. You will likely move faster if you can reason about debits and credits, journal entries, revenue recognition, deferred revenue, settlement accounts, and the difference between cash collected and income recognized. Experience with lending, loan servicing, collections, education financing, payment facilitators, regulatory compliance, tax allocation, Finix, Payabli, Stripe, Plaid, PHP, or Laravel is also helpful. Our Technology Our current platform includes PHP, Laravel, Livewire, Filament, MySQL, Redis, and Pest. Our financial integrations include Finix, Payabli, Stripe, and Plaid. We use tools such as Codex, Claude Code, and Gemini throughout development. You should be comfortable using AI-assisted tools thoughtfully while remaining accountable for the resulting architecture, code, and business outcomes. Why Join Lumion You will take ownership of the financial platform at the center of a rapidly expanding company. Your work will influence whether schools collect tuition reliably, whether students can trust their balances, and whether Lumion continues to grow. You will have real authority over the payments roadmap, the technical architecture, and the team building it. Compensation and Benefits $110,000–$145,000 base salaryEquityQuarterly performance bonusesUnlimited PTO401(k)Health, dental, and vision coverage, with an employer contribution of up to $537.50 per month$200 monthly technology stipend$100 monthly wellness stipendFull-time, in-person work in South Jordan, Utah