Director of Engineering and Product

ZipRecruiter; Washington (District of Columbia); Remote; USD 125,000 - 135,000; Full time

Job summary

America Votes is hiring a Director of Engineering and Product to manage the engineering team and enhance data infrastructure. This full-time position entails overseeing projects, creating data tools, and guiding technology investments to facilitate voter engagement and organizational growth. The ideal candidate will bring experience in software engineering, strong leadership abilities, and a commitment to creating equitable electoral processes.

Benefits

100% coverage of employee medical, dental, & vision insurance premiums

Life insurance and long-term disability coverage

Monthly cell phone reimbursement

Parental leave

Generous paid time off policy

Qualifications

• Multiple years in software, analytics, or data engineering, with management experience.
• Strong background in developing and mentoring team members.
• Exceptional collaboration skills and experience with data pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Manage the engineering team and oversee day-to-day engineering work.
• Create and maintain data pipelines for BigQuery database and external tools.
• Provide strategic recommendations for technology investments.

Skills

Problem-solving skills

Strategic thinking

SQL

Python

Collaboration

Communication skills

Job description

Job DescriptionJob Description

Organization Overview

America Votes is the coordination hub of the progressive community, leading collaborative efforts among a diverse coalition of more than 400 state and partner organizations to advance progressive policies, win elections, and protect every American's right to vote. America Votes works nationally and in more than 20 states to provide a range of services to partners, including strategic planning, advocacy and electoral campaign coordination, data tools and targeting services, and on-the-ground leadership in key states.

America Votes is committed to developing long-term roadmaps and setting critical goals for states. With an eye on redistricting and the consequences of extreme conservative gerrymanders and attacks upon voting rights, these efforts are essential to building progressive power in the states, session-by-session and election-by-election.

America Votes and its partner organizations are at the heart of the progressive movement's effort to win elections and create change. In 2024, the America Votes coalition deployed their largest-ever voter engagement and mobilization effort to reach millions of voters in states. For more information about America Votes, visit www.americavotes.org.

Racial Equity Statement

As a leader of collaborative efforts to mobilize voters, protect voting rights, and win elections, America Votes is committed to advancing racial equity within our organization and across our coalition. We acknowledge the systematic racism that permeates all facets of our society, beginning with the foundational right to vote. America Votes is also engaging with an understanding of the ways , sexuality, and other forms of oppression intersect with and how those relationships impact inequities faced by our staff, our partners, and the communities that we engage in our work. America Votes strives to model our commitment to racial equity through our internal and external operations, programs, and partnerships. We acknowledge the inequitable structures that continue to exist and are moving forward with a sustained commitment in time, resources, and people to challenge structural racism and work towards creating a reflective organization and democracy.

Position Description

America Votes is looking to bring on an experienced Director of Engineering and Product at an exciting moment for the organization. In 2024, AV coordinated the largest independent expenditure effort in its history, which was made possible by multi-cycle investments in its data infrastructure and staffing. The ideal candidate is animated by both maintaining and improving our existing infrastructure, as well as willing to dream big about new tooling to help us better access and use data.

This person will manage the data engineering team and work closely with other parts of the data team and state data directors. This is a permanent, full-time management position that reports to the Data & Targeting Director and is not union eligible.

Responsibilities

• Manage the engineering team. This includes supervising the day-to-day work of the engineering team and working with other data verticals and departments to understand and shape the role of engineering at America Votes.
• Create or maintain pipelines used to load data into our BigQuery database, as well as pipelines to send data from our warehouse to partners or user-facing tools. This includes being responsible for AV's overall cloud infrastructure.
• Identify and build new internal and external-facing tools that help partners and AV staff do their jobs more easily, efficiently, and effectively. These tools will be low-code front end applications that allow non-technical staff to interface with them.
• Provide strategic recommendations to guide America Votes' investments in its technology stack and in movement technology.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

Must Haves

• Multiple years working in software, analytics, or data engineering, including meaningful experience as a people manager.
• Desire and track record of educating, mentoring, and developing junior to mid-level team members.
• Strong problem-solving skills, strategic thinking capabilities, and attention to detail.
• Demonstrated ability to move work forward with a strong sense of ownership and resilience with respect to planning ahead, finding alternative paths when needed, and bouncing back from setbacks and rejections.
• Exceptional collaboration and cross-functional team communication skills.
• Excellent SQL and Python skills; experience using APIs, Python, and data orchestration tools to create and maintain data pipelines.
• Demonstrated interest and record of building internal or external-facing products through the product life cycle.
• Comfort using and training staff on git and code review best practices such as branches and pull requests.
• Experience developing web applications and tools.

Nice to Haves

• Experience working on a political campaign or with a progressive organization, especially an organization in the AV coalition or a party committee / candidate campaign.
• Experience developing low-code web applications (e.g. Streamlit, NiceGUI).
• Experience working with voter files or political tools such as NGP/VAN.
• Experience creating and administering databases and other cloud infrastructure.
• Experience with data transformation and visualization tools such as dbt (data build tool), or Google Data Studio.
• Understanding of unit testing, CI/CD, and other software engineering best practices.

Location

The location for this position is flexible. Some travel and reasonable access to an airport is required. America Votes has offices located in AZ, DC,CO, FL, GA, MN, NC, NH, NV, OH, PA, and WI.

Compensation

The salary for this position will be between $125,000 - $135,000 and dependent upon the applicant's experience. America Votes offers a competitive benefits package covering 100% of employee medical, dental, & vision insurance premiums, life insurance, long term disability coverage, monthly cell phone reimbursement, personal professional development funds, parental leave, and 401 (K) after four months of continuous service with the organization. America Votes provides a generous paid time off policy with paid vacation, unlimited sick and safe leave, paid personal days, at least 10 Federal paid holidays including Juneteenth, as well as paid organizational time off from at least December 23 to January 1.

To Apply

Please submit a copy of your resume, a cover letter and three references to the application form.

If you experience any technical difficulties with our application form, please email [e-mail]. Please note that only applications received through the application form will be considered; please do not email us your application materials.

America Votes is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace. America Votes does not discriminate on the basis of , , creed, , or , , , or expression, , disability, veteran status or any other protected category under local, state or federal law. People of , candidates, individuals with disabilities, and neurodivergent individuals are strongly encouraged to apply.