Overview

Code for America believes government can work for the people, by the people, in the digital age, and that government at all levels can and should work well for all people. For more than a decade, we’ve worked to show that with the mindful use of technology, we can break down barriers, meet community needs, and find real solutions.

Our employees and active community of volunteers build and transform government and community tools and services, making them so good they inspire change. We merge the best parts of technology, nonprofit, and government to help support the people who need it most. With a focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and deep empathy for partners in government and community organizations and the people that our partners serve, we’re building a movement of motivated change agents driven by meaningful results and lasting impact. At Code for America, you contribute to exciting work while learning and developing in a supportive and flexible environment. Our compensation and benefits are holistic and thoughtfully curated to represent our employees and our mission. Help us drive real generational change that lasts.

Code for America is looking for a talented Staff Software Engineer who will contribute to our new Tax Benefits projects.

This position is designated as being part of OPEIU (Office Professional Employees International Union, Local 1010), the union that we voluntarily recognized in fall 2021. We are currently still in negotiations for our first CBA (collective bargaining agreement). Once that is signed, there will be union dues or fees associated with this position. The amount of the dues or fees will be set by the union, and we do not yet know what that amount will be.

About the Role: 

Code for America’s Software Engineers are involved in all stages of our products’ lifecycle: product prototyping, developing features in response to user feedback, and operating technical systems at scale. We practice agile, iterative development, working closely with product managers, designers, researchers and users.

Some of our current and past projects include:

• GetCalFresh: improve how government delivers food assistance to families in need
• Integrated Benefits: simplify how Americans access safety net services
• Tax Benefits: deliver cash support through free, high quality online tax help
• Clear My Record: give people a second chance to get jobs and housing by clearing past convictions
• Code for America Network: connect a national alliance of community organizers, developers, and designers

You’ll be assigned to work full time on one of our active product teams, and may have the opportunity to rotate to other teams in the future.

Responsibilities will include:

Product development (40%)

• Craft new features that help users more easily navigate government services and receive a dignified experience.
• Write automated tests and develop monitoring strategies to ensure a high level of service quality.
• Implement minimal features to maximize learning, and then harden features to scale when we know they work.

Collaborate with teams and users (40%)

• Pair program with your teammates to design and deliver clean, reliable, and maintainable solutions to user problems that keep communication high and the cost of change low
• Interact with and help users yourself to better understand their experiences.

Team leadership (15%)

• Help mentor junior teammates and onboard new teammates
• Lead team processes like daily standup and retrospectives
• Contribute to feature scoping and ticket writing

Other duties as assigned (5%)

Qualifications:

• Interested in the mission of making government services better for people who need them most.
• At least 7 years experience building software professionally, including at least 4 years of web development experience
• Understanding of computer science and web fundamentals, from data structures to APIs
• Eager in collaborating with others, receiving mentorship, and teaching others
• Willing to participate in all aspects of software development. You plan, code, test, deploy, monitor, and fix bugs
• Can write understandable, testable, and maintainable code
• Possess excellent written and verbal communication skills

It’s a bonus points if you: 

• Have personal experience with the justice system, social safety net, workforce training, or other mission-relevant government services
• Are familiar with and comfortable with pair programming and test driven development (We don’t pair all the time, but we find it really helpful in lots of contexts!)
• Have experience with one or more of the technologies we use, such as Ruby on Rails, Java Spring, Django, Terraform, and AWS cloud services

What you’ll get: 

Salary: 

Code for America’s salary bands are transparent internally as a part of our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are happy to extend this transparency during the recruitment process. As a part of our equitable hiring practices, we aim to target the midpoint of the 2nd quartile of the range for all new hires.

The targets for this role are dependent on the market/geographic location. The targets for this role range from $128,945 to $157,850.

Benefits and perks: 

• Values:
  • Leadership and teammates who value Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity (DE&I)
  • A collaborative, cross-functional, hardworking and fun environment
• Medical & Retirement:
  • Full benefits package with 100% coverage towards select medical, dental and vision plans and contributes 80% of the cost towards dependent and family coverage
  • 401k plan with matching funds up to 3%
• Professional development:
  • Bi annual 360 review process alongside compensation reviews
  • $1000 annual (per calendar year) stipend towards professional development
  • A manager and org-wide structure that supports and enables professional development
• Flexible Time:
  • Unlimited Paid Time Off policy
  • Flexible working hours- we aim to hold all internal meetings between 10 AM – 3 PM PT
  • Code for America employees may work remotely across the US
    • Code for America employees may not work remotely outside of the US at anytime during their employment
• Employee enablement support:
  • $200 stipend in first paycheck for remote environment setup
  • Additional equipment reimbursement of up to $500 for remote enablement
  • Cell phone and/or internet reimbursement of $50 per month

Equal Employment Opportunity: 

Code for America values a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace and strongly encourages women, people of color, LGBTQ+ folks, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply. Code for America is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.