Lead Software Engineer

Full time, remote, competitive benefits

Location: Remote only, but you must be based within the US.

Salary: Our range for this role is $100-150k. That’s a broad range because we adjust our salaries based on both experience and the region where you reside. This ensures that all of our employees have a consistent standard of living, regardless of the city they call home. When setting salaries, we look at sources like Glassdoor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

About VoteAmerica

VoteAmerica is a national voter registration and voter turnout organization, started by the founder of Vote.org. We are the single most cost-effective organization in the sector: no one mobilizes more voters per dollar spent than we do. Our work is two-fold: we pioneer new and innovative tactics, and then we scale proven systems.

Those text messages that you get urging you to vote? Although now ubiquitous, our founder pioneered this work in the US years ago. Last year, we sent over 100 million text messages. As our prior work has become mainstream, we continue to be relentlessly focused on developing the next big strategies that will get 100% of Americans registered to vote and get them to the polls. In the meantime, we’re laser focused on the 2022 midterm elections.

About the role

We are looking for a Lead Software Engineer who has significant prior experience building consumer tech products on the web, and cares deeply about our mission of increasing turnout.

In this position, you will

Spend your days building a better world through the strategic implementation of technology to help people register and turn out to vote.

Stay highly organized and use the resources you have to get things done quickly and thoughtfully.

Develop new products, but you won’t always be building from scratch – you’ll decide when it makes sense to adopt an off-the-shelf solution.

Be an integral part of the VoteAmerica team, and be responsive to and in service of the work being done throughout the organization.

Be in charge of a robust (and growing) codebase that dozens of high-profile organizations rely on. We’ve built some really cool things, and we open source as much as possible.

Day-to-day responsibilities

You will spend your time

Collaborating with the CEO and other, non-technical colleagues to plan and develop technology solutions that are used by tens of millions of potential voters each year.

Owning the entire tech stack, from writing code to setting up infrastructure

Developing new products, implementing features, fixing bugs, and taking care of technical chores as needed

Coding primarily in Python (Django), JavaScript (React), HTML, CSS, and SQL

Setting up and maintaining our tech infrastructure (AWS, ECS, Spinnaker, Lambda, Aurora Postgres)

Managing complex technical projects from start to finish, working both independently and with other staff

Deciding when to build or buy – and being able to justify your decisions with data

Evaluating and choosing technology vendors based on the organization’s needs and resources

Analyzing your work and reporting on it to the CEO and other internal stakeholders

Working as the only full-time engineer for most of 2021 – that means you’ll be writing a lot of code yourself – but you’ll also be involved in recruiting, hiring, and managing other software engineers in 2022 and beyond

Minimum qualifications

We require that you have:

5+ years of recent experience as an individual contributor in software development for the web

2+ years of experience working on an existing codebase that you personally did not develop from scratch

2+ years of experience working together with other software engineers on a shared codebase

Experience with long-term planning and development; you have been on at least one project that took at least 6 months from kickoff to launch

Experience in CI and TDD – but you do not let perfect testing be the enemy of good testing

An understanding of the importance of documentation for your fellow developers, current and future

The ability to pass a background check; you will have access to sensitive, personal information about millions of people

A willingness to put in long hours during critical and predictable election periods. With democracy on the line, things get busy in the leadup to Election Day.

Bonus points for the following

We expect that our ideal candidate will have at least 2-3 of the following:

A bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field

Prior experience working on a political campaign or at a mission-driven organization

Prior experience managing AWS services

Experience coding in Python, React, and Django, specifically on a product that is live in production

Experience with analytics, data warehouse platforms, and ETL processes

Experience as an engineering lead or manager

Experience recruiting and hiring other software developers

Enthusiasm for 508 compliant designs; our tools need to be accessible to everyone

Interest and enthusiasm for design and product excellence

Some of the benefits of working at VoteAmerica

Family friendly policies: We have flexible work hours, so if you need to take 3-5pm off every day for after school snacks and homework time, that’s fine. We’ll also cover child care and pet care expenses that you incur if we require you to travel.

Delightful colleagues: We are a smart, fun, and dedicated group of people that want to make an impact.

Short commute: We all work from home and it is just the best.

Excellent medical coverage: Full health, dental, and vision for employees and generous employer subsidies for your dependents.

Generous time off: 4 weeks of accrued vacation time per year, 12 company holidays, and we shut down the office for at least a week each year so we can all recoup together.

Retirement plans: We offer a regular 401k and a Roth 401k because we want you to retire one day, preferably after decades of working at VoteAmerica.

How to apply

Submit your resume and the answers to a couple of short questions that demonstrate your interest and skills. We don't require a cover letter, because you don't want to write one and we don’t want to read it.

The deadline to apply is May 12. Applications are processed on a rolling basis. We are looking to fill this role ASAP, so you should apply as soon as you can.