Staff Software Engineer (Comet Squad)

Change.org is searching for a Staff Software Engineer to help lead the team in structuring complex data and building features that enable our expert campaigners to provide first class support to organizers on our platform. This is a full time position, based in San Francisco, California and will report to our Engineering Manager there.

We’re a social impact business (a public benefit company), and the largest tech platform focused on civic action in the world with 50m monthly users, 50,000 campaigns launched on the site every month, hundreds of millions of signatures per year, 200 staff, and a new revenue model that has grown by 500% in 2 years. We are profitable, growing fast, and executing on a plan to deepen and scale the social movements on our platform, from strengthening hate crime legislation in South Africa, to bringing down the price of insulin across the United States, to fighting corruption in Indonesia, Italy, and Brazil. We are seeing surging levels of activity right now as the world mobilizes to fight the Coronavirus and the cascading impacts of the Coronavirus on society's most vulnerable.

We’re looking for an experienced Staff Software Engineer with a passion for using technology to lift the voices of people around the world. Our team relies on REST APIs and Event Driven communication to rapidly deliver insights to our support team at scale. We work across the full stack, architecting efficient data structures and ensuring a responsive UI that delights our users, all in the same day. We leverage the latest cloud infrastructure to speedily adapt to our regular bursts of traffic when a social movement arises. If you relish challenges like these and working with other compassionate engineers to change the world then come join our team!

As a key member of our Engineering team, you’ll:

• Architect and build new features and services, maintain existing ones.
• Debug issues across the stack and underlying systems
• Manage scaling performance enhancements
• Help to set technical direction and priorities
• Have to ability to break down ambiguous problems into actionable chunks and then execute on them
• Manage their own priorities and set the pace for a team of engineers to execute successfully on a shared vision
• Performing code reviews and mentoring more junior engineers to level up the team

The most important capabilities for the role are:

• Coding skills: Full stack mindset, with expertise on the backend. Comfort and confidence with different technologies, languages and frameworks in all layers of the webstack, from frontend to backend with an emphasis on Ruby, Javascript, React, GraphQL, SQL and AWS.
• Architecture & Design, Performance: Ability to create robust, scalable, and performant cross-systems architecture and influence architectural decisions in a collaborative environment.
• Planning & Execution: Deconstructing projects into a well-defined action plan, and being responsible for its execution.
• Communication: Communicate early and often, sharing ideas, analysis, and information in a direct, articulate manner. Partner and collaborate effectively cross-functionally.
• Coaching & Mentorship: You’ve helped shape and define other engineers’ growth. Even better if you’ve also been responsible for their growth as their direct manager!

Target background/experience:

• Experience using Ruby with amplified ability to work on the backend
• Experience working independently with little supervision
• Experience managing uncertainty and ability to keep calm, learn, and move forward in the face of change
• Experience mentoring and coaching engineers

Additional experience we are looking for:

• Experience working full stack (Elixir, Javascript, React, GraphQL, SQL)
• Familiarity with Event Driven Architecture
• Experience building strategic solutions for full team execution

It’s rare that a candidate has a ‘perfect’ set of relevant experiences, we do not expect this, and all candidates are encouraged to apply, even if you are missing some of the items in the list above.

Change.org is a global company, and salaries are adjusted for cost of labor in each city. For example, an annual salary of a Senior Software Engineer would be $155,000 USD or Staff Software Engineer would be $182,000 USD in San Francisco. In exceptional circumstances, we may offer below the listed salary for high potential candidates with less experience, or above it for candidates with significantly more experience.

We anticipate moving very quickly and our evaluation process is as follows:
-45 min interview with our Recruiter
-1 hour interview with our Director of Engineering
-2.5 hour take home assignment
-3 hour virtual onsite with our Director of Engineering and 2 Engineering Managers
-30 min interview with our CTO

We especially encourage applicants of different backgrounds, cultures, genders, experiences, abilities and perspectives to apply. We’re actively working to increase the diversity of experience and perspectives on our team and are looking for someone who can help continue to lead that process.

Change.org is committed to being a diverse and inclusive workplace. Everyone says this, right? Well, we mean it - we invest in serious programs to bring in and support women and people of color, we have in-person onboarding experiences and affinity groups to help everyone feel included, we regularly celebrate the heritage of all staff, and we believe strongly in consistent, fair, and transparent salary scales to help level the playing field. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, or disability or veteran status.