Seeking an Engineering Lead for a Local Lab team to develop a community platform, focusing on full-stack development, AI integration, and agile practices. The role requires strong technical skills, strategic thinking, and a commitment to building equitable digital spaces. Remote position with a salary of $170,000 – $190,000 USD per year. Encouragement for diverse candidates to apply.
New_Public
We are seeking an Engineering Lead to join our Local Lab team! This role is the technical foundation of our Local Lab, a small, cross-functional team dedicated to developing a new community platform for local connection while engaging in co-design with real communities along the way. The Local Lab is turning its attention to local communities and building on the success of New_ Public’s product development partnership with public broadcasters in North America and Europe. In this role, you will architect and build a new platform that enables meaningful local community connections online. As the Local Lab team’s founding engineer, you’ll have the unique opportunity to shape our technical direction from the ground up—from choosing our tech stack and establishing development practices to implementing core features that directly impact how communities interact and thrive in digital spaces. (You’ll also have engineering colleagues across the product org, on the Public Spaces Incubator team.) You’ll work at the intersection of technical excellence and community needs, translating our research insights and co-design sessions with community stewards into thoughtful, accessible, and scalable solutions. This role requires not just strong full-stack development skills, but also the strategic thinking to make technical decisions that support our mission of creating more equitable and flourishing digital public spaces. You’ll be empowered to move quickly while building for long-term sustainability, balancing the need to get working prototypes in front of communities with establishing the robust technical foundation this platform needs to grow. Key responsibilities:Support a successful launch of our MVP within the next year—ensuring core features work reliably, security is robust, and the platform meets the needs of our initial five communities and their stewards.Drive full-stack engineering efforts to design, develop, test, deploy, maintain, and iterate on our community platform, with a focus on scalability and user experience.Assess AI use cases and integrate generative AI into the product, while being mindful of negative externalities.Contribute to product strategy for an early-stage product, and collaborate closely with design, research, and product colleagues to translate community needs and feedback into technical solutions.Balance long-term needs (e.g. performance, complexity, code hygiene) with short-term needs (getting a working MVP in front of users and stewards quickly).Lead agile development practices to efficiently ship and iterate on features based on user feedback and community needs.Design and implement automated workflows for development, testing, deployment, and monitoring.Establish a solid foundation of engineering best practices in collaboration with the Product team. About youYou’re a versatile full-stack engineer who can both build rapidly from the ground up and make strategic technical decisions that take the long view.You have experience in startup environments, working on early-stage products where requirements evolve rapidly and jumpstarting a team’s frontend and backend engineering capabilities.Strong expertise in JavaScript, CSS, and modern front-end frameworks (e.g., React, Angular, Backbone, Ember, etc.)Experience building responsive, mobile-first web applications and native iOS/Android apps.Solid understanding of engineering best practices including: Agile development methodologies; Web accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA standards); Security and privacy best practices; Application scalability and performance optimization.You have experimented with integrating generative AI into your workflows and ideally have contributed to the development and release of an AI-driven product.Driven to understand both the potential benefits and harms of new technologies, eager to be thoughtful when putting them to use, and willing to advocate for equitable outcomes from their applications.Excellent communicator who can collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams; contribute substantively discussions about scoping, dependencies, and trade-offs; and maintain clear documentation.Demonstrated interest in building healthy online communities and public digital spaces. Nice to have:Experience building community or social platformsKnowledge of real-time communication protocols and infrastructureBackground in public interest technology or working with nonprofit organizations More informationLocation: United States or Canada (fully remote)Compensation: $170,000 – $190,000 USD per year. This is a full-time position.Reports to: Head of Product, Local Lab The ProcessSubmission: Submit your application using the “Apply here” link below. First Interview: After screening all applications, we will select candidates for Round 1 interviews, Those candidates will be contacted to interview with the Head of Product, Local LabSecond Interview: Selected Round 1 candidates move forward to Round 2 of our interview process. Those candidates will be invited to interview with members of our wider engineering team.Assignment: Following Round 2, selected candidates will be asked to complete an assignment that evaluates their technical and practical skills. Candidates will receive a $250 via Tango gift-card for completing this assignment.Reference Check: After reviewing assignment submissions, we will request contact information for three (3) professional references from selected candidates. If you need time to inform your references of our upcoming outreach, please let us know!Offer: We will extend an offer to the candidate who best aligns with the key criteria for this role. If you’re not sure that you’re a perfect fit for the role and don’t meet every single qualification, we still encourage you to apply! We’re primarily interested in meeting candidates who are excited about contributing to the future of healthy digital public spaces, eager to learn, and ready to contribute to a diverse and inclusive work environment. Candidates who are from communities underrepresented in tech are especially encouraged to apply.