What is a Software Engineer at Research Foundation of CUNY?
As a Software Engineer at the Research Foundation of CUNY (RF CUNY), you are stepping into a role that bridges complex technical development with the expansive mission of public higher education and research. You will be building, maintaining, and scaling applications that directly support students, faculty, researchers, and administrative staff across the City University of New York network. Your work ensures that critical educational platforms, research administration tools, and internal systems operate seamlessly and efficiently.
The impact of this position is deeply tied to the user experience of the academic community. Whether you are developing features for a Learning Management System (LMS) or architecting robust databases to handle complex research grants, your code facilitates the core operations of one of the largest public university systems in the United States. You will tackle challenges related to scale, data integrity, and cross-platform responsiveness, ensuring that end-users have reliable access to the resources they need.
Expect a role that balances technical rigor with a strong sense of purpose. The environment is collaborative and highly professional, offering a unique opportunity to apply modern software engineering practices—such as advanced JavaScript frameworks and complex SQL database management—within an academic and research-driven context. You will be expected to take ownership of your projects, advocate for best practices, and continuously improve the technical foundation that supports CUNY’s diverse initiatives.
Common Interview Questions
The questions below are representative of what candidates face during the Research Foundation of CUNY interview process. They are designed to highlight patterns in the evaluation process, focusing heavily on past experience, front-end responsiveness, and database mastery.
Resume and Experience Deep Dive
This category tests your ability to articulate your past work, demonstrating that you truly understand the architecture and impact of the projects you list on your resume.
- Walk me through your resume and highlight the projects you are most proud of.
- Can you discuss a time when a project did not go as planned and how you recovered?
- Describe your role in the last major application you deployed.
- How do you balance technical debt with the need to release features quickly?
- Explain a complex technical decision you made to a non-technical stakeholder.
Front-End and Responsive Design
These questions evaluate your practical knowledge of modern web development and your commitment to user-centric design.
- Give me a specific example of how you ensured responsiveness in a recent web application.
- What are the biggest challenges you face when developing for mobile versus desktop, and how do you solve them?
- How do you manage state in a complex JavaScript application?
- Can you explain your approach to optimizing front-end performance?
- Describe a time you had to debug a tricky UI inconsistency across different browsers.
Database and SQL Mastery
This category assesses your ability to handle data safely, efficiently, and at scale using relational databases.
- What is your experience with writing advanced SQL queries?
- Can you explain the difference between a clustered and a non-clustered index?
- Walk me through how you would optimize a query that is taking too long to execute.
- Describe a scenario where you had to use complex joins and subqueries to extract specific reporting data.
- How do you ensure data integrity when performing large-scale updates?
Domain and System Design
These questions look at your high-level architectural thinking, particularly in the context of educational technology.
- Discuss your experience with developing or integrating a Learning Management System (LMS).
- How would you design a system to handle concurrent assignment submissions from thousands of students?
- What are the key security considerations when building an application that handles student data?
- How do you approach designing a scalable and maintainable REST API?
- If you were tasked with rebuilding a legacy internal tool from scratch, where would you start?
Getting Ready for Your Interviews
Thorough preparation is the key to navigating the interview process at Research Foundation of CUNY. The hiring team is looking for candidates who not only possess strong technical fundamentals but also understand how to apply them to real-world, user-centric problems.
Technical Proficiency – You must demonstrate a deep understanding of the core technologies used by the team, particularly JavaScript and advanced SQL. Interviewers will evaluate your ability to write clean, efficient code and your capacity to design complex database queries that handle substantial academic or research data.
Project Ownership and Experience – The team heavily indexes on your past work. You will be evaluated on your ability to articulate the architecture, challenges, and outcomes of your previous projects. Strong candidates will provide detailed, specific examples of their contributions, rather than vague overviews.
Problem-Solving and Architecture – You will be assessed on how you approach building responsive, scalable applications. Interviewers want to see your methodology for designing systems like a Learning Management System (LMS) or handling cross-device responsiveness, focusing on your structured thinking and user-first mindset.
Collaboration and Professionalism – Working within a university research foundation requires navigating diverse stakeholder needs. You will be evaluated on your communication skills, your receptiveness to feedback, and your ability to work collaboratively across technical and non-technical teams.
Interview Process Overview
The interview process for a Software Engineer at Research Foundation of CUNY is designed to be thorough but respectful of your time. You can expect a structured progression that typically begins with a comprehensive resume walkthrough and behavioral screen. During this initial phase, the team will dive deeply into your background, asking you to unpack specific projects, your role in them, and the technical decisions you made.
Subsequent rounds blend technical assessments with deeper behavioral evaluations. You will face targeted questions regarding your technical stack, particularly focusing on JavaScript and advanced SQL queries. The interviewers are known for being exceptionally professional, understanding, and supportive, creating an environment where you can showcase your true capabilities. Even if you are a junior candidate or a recent graduate, you will be treated with a high level of professional respect.
What makes this process distinctive is the heavy emphasis on practical, applied experience rather than abstract whiteboard algorithms. The team wants to know exactly how you handled responsive design in a past application or how you approached building educational tools.
This visual timeline outlines the typical stages of your interview journey, from the initial resume deep-dive to the final technical and behavioral rounds. Use this to pace your preparation, ensuring you are equally ready to discuss your soft skills and your technical architecture. Note that while the core stages remain consistent, the depth of the technical drill-down may vary slightly depending on whether you are interviewing for an Application Developer or a Senior Software Engineer position.
Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas
Resume Walkthrough and Past Projects
Your past experience is the strongest predictor of your future success at Research Foundation of CUNY. Interviewers will ask you to walk through your resume line by line, expecting you to defend your technical choices and explain the business impact of your work. Strong performance here means speaking confidently about the "why" behind your code, not just the "how."
Be ready to go over:
- End-to-end project lifecycle – Explaining how you took a feature from concept to deployment.
- Overcoming technical roadblocks – Discussing specific bugs or architectural flaws you identified and resolved.
- Stakeholder communication – How you translated business or academic requirements into technical specifications.
- Advanced concepts (less common) –
- Refactoring legacy systems without disrupting active users.
- Implementing CI/CD pipelines for your specific projects.
Example questions or scenarios:
- "Walk me through the most complex project on your resume. What was your specific contribution?"
- "Tell me about a time you had to pivot your technical approach on a project midway through development."
- "How do you ensure that the documentation for your past projects remains accurate and useful for the next developer?"
Front-End Development and Responsiveness
Because the applications built here serve a wide demographic of students and faculty accessing tools across various devices, front-end responsiveness is a critical evaluation area. You will be tested on your modern JavaScript knowledge and your approach to building fluid, adaptable user interfaces.
Be ready to go over:
- Responsive design principles – Media queries, flexbox, grid, and mobile-first development.
- JavaScript fundamentals – ES6+ features, asynchronous programming, and DOM manipulation.
- UI/UX collaboration – How you ensure your technical implementation matches the intended user experience.
- Advanced concepts (less common) –
- State management in large-scale single-page applications.
- Web accessibility (a11y) standards crucial for public educational institutions.
Example questions or scenarios:
- "Give me a specific example of how you implemented responsiveness in one of your recent projects."
- "How do you handle cross-browser compatibility issues in your JavaScript code?"
- "Explain your approach to optimizing the load time of a visually heavy web application."
Database Management and Advanced SQL
Data is at the heart of the research foundation. You must prove your ability to interact with complex relational databases. Interviewers will look for your proficiency in writing advanced SQL queries, optimizing database performance, and ensuring data integrity.
Be ready to go over:
- Complex queries – Joins, subqueries, window functions, and aggregations.
- Database design – Normalization, schema design, and indexing strategies.
- Data manipulation – Safely updating and migrating large datasets.
- Advanced concepts (less common) –
- Query execution plan analysis and bottleneck identification.
- Designing databases specifically for educational technology or LMS platforms.
Example questions or scenarios:
- "Describe your experience writing advanced SQL queries. Can you give an example of a particularly complex query you had to write?"
- "How would you design the database schema for a system tracking student enrollments and grades?"
- "Tell me about a time you had to optimize a slow-performing database query."
Domain Experience: Educational Technology
While not always a strict prerequisite, experience with or a strong understanding of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and educational technology is highly valued. The team evaluates your ability to conceptualize the unique workflows of educators and students.
Be ready to go over:
- LMS architecture – Understanding how content delivery, assessments, and user roles interact.
- User role management – Handling permissions for administrators, teachers, and students.
- System integration – Connecting external tools or APIs to an existing educational platform.
- Advanced concepts (less common) –
- SCORM compliance and educational data standards.
- Real-time collaboration features within an educational platform.
Example questions or scenarios:
- "Discuss your experience with developing or integrating a Learning Management System."
- "How would you approach building a feature that allows faculty to bulk-upload grades securely?"
- "What do you consider the most important technical feature of a successful educational platform?"
Key Responsibilities
As a Software Engineer at Research Foundation of CUNY, your day-to-day work revolves around building and maintaining robust applications that serve the university's diverse ecosystem. You will be actively writing code, primarily focusing on JavaScript for the front-end and complex SQL for backend data management. A significant portion of your time will be spent ensuring that these applications are highly responsive, accessible, and capable of handling varying loads from students and faculty.
Collaboration is a massive part of this role. You will frequently interact with cross-functional teams, including product managers, academic administrators, and other engineering units. You will participate in code reviews, architecture discussions, and sprint planning, ensuring that the technical deliverables align closely with the strategic goals of the research foundation.
You will also be responsible for driving specific initiatives, which may include developing new modules for an internal Learning Management System, optimizing legacy databases to improve query response times, or migrating older applications to modern frameworks. You are expected to take ownership of these projects, providing technical guidance and troubleshooting complex issues as they arise in production.
Role Requirements & Qualifications
To thrive as a Software Engineer at Research Foundation of CUNY, you need a blend of strong technical capabilities and the soft skills necessary to navigate an academic-adjacent environment.
- Must-have technical skills – Deep proficiency in JavaScript and modern front-end frameworks. Strong command of relational databases and the ability to write advanced SQL queries. Proven experience in building responsive web applications.
- Experience level – Typically requires 3+ years of professional software engineering experience, though expectations scale up for Senior Software Engineer roles. A track record of taking projects from conception to deployment is essential.
- Soft skills – Excellent verbal and written communication skills. The ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders. A collaborative mindset and a high degree of professionalism.
- Nice-to-have skills – Prior experience developing or maintaining a Learning Management System (LMS). Background working in higher education, research administration, or government technology sectors. Familiarity with web accessibility standards.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How difficult is the interview process? The difficulty is generally considered average compared to big tech, but it is highly thorough. The interviewers care less about trick algorithms and more about your practical ability to build responsive applications, write complex SQL, and articulate your past project experiences clearly.
Q: What is the culture like at Research Foundation of CUNY? The culture is highly professional, respectful, and collaborative. Interviewers are known to be kind and understanding, treating candidates with respect regardless of their seniority. It is an environment that values learning, teamwork, and a shared mission to support CUNY’s educational goals.
Q: Do I need prior experience in higher education or with an LMS? While having experience with a Learning Management System or working in EdTech is a distinct advantage and will be asked about, it is generally a "nice-to-have" rather than a strict requirement. Strong fundamental skills in JavaScript, SQL, and responsive design can outweigh a lack of domain experience.
Q: What is the typical timeline for the interview process? The process usually moves at a standard pace, taking about 3 to 4 weeks from the initial recruiter screen to a final decision. You will typically have a few days to prepare between the initial resume walkthrough and the deeper technical rounds.
Q: Are there opportunities for mentorship and growth? Yes. Candidates have noted that the environment provides excellent opportunities to work on technical skills and learn how to collaborate effectively with diverse teams. The supportive nature of the staff makes it a strong place for steady career growth.
Other General Tips
- Master Your Resume: The interviewers will use your resume as the primary roadmap for the conversation. Be prepared to speak in-depth about every technology, project, and outcome you have listed. If it is on the page, it is fair game.
- Prepare Concrete Examples: When asked about responsiveness or SQL, do not speak in generalities. Have specific stories ready: "In Project X, I used CSS Grid and media queries to solve Y problem," or "I optimized a query by adding an index to column Z."
- Brush Up on Advanced SQL: Do not assume basic CRUD knowledge is enough. Review window functions, complex joins, subqueries, and performance optimization techniques. You need to prove you can handle complex data environments.
- Highlight Collaboration: Because you will be working across various academic and administrative departments, emphasize your ability to communicate clearly, take feedback, and work as part of a cohesive team.
- Show Interest in the Mission: RF CUNY supports public education and research. Demonstrating an understanding of and appreciation for this mission can set you apart from candidates who view it as just another tech job.
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Summary & Next Steps
Securing a Software Engineer role at the Research Foundation of CUNY is an excellent opportunity to build technology that directly impacts public education and critical research initiatives. You will be joining a professional, supportive team that values practical software engineering skills, collaborative problem-solving, and a dedication to creating responsive, user-friendly applications.
The compensation for software engineering roles here is competitive, with Application Developers typically seeing ranges between 143,000, while Senior Software Engineer roles are listed between 125,000, depending on the specific scope and departmental budget. Use these figures to set realistic expectations and negotiate confidently once you reach the offer stage.
To succeed in this process, focus your preparation on mastering your own past experiences, brushing up on advanced SQL queries, and solidifying your approach to modern, responsive front-end development. Remember that the interviewers want you to succeed and are looking for a collaborative partner as much as a technical expert. Continue to practice your narrative, refine your technical explanations, and explore additional interview insights on Dataford to ensure you walk into your interviews fully prepared. You have the skills to make a meaningful impact—now go demonstrate them.