Location: Brooklyn, NY or remote within the US

About our organization:

At Democracy Works, we help Americans vote, no matter what! Our vision is to make voting a simple, seamless experience for all Americans so that no one misses an election, and our team works to help make this happen. This includes TurboVote , the Voting Information Project (VIP), How To Vote, and Ballot Scout. Alongside the CAA Foundation, we co-founded the Civic Alliance. Democracy Works is committed to diversity and inclusion in everything we do and aspires to have a team that's representative of the voters we serve.

Salary Range: $166,500 - $205,000 per year (Offers will vary based on experience and location-based cost-of-living calculations)

Level: Senior, supervisory

The impact you’ll make:

Democracy Works programs and products touch millions of existing and potential voters each year. The VP of Engineering will lead our engineering department, ensuring that we have the processes and infrastructure necessary to meet our mission by supporting the diverse team that brings it to life. Reporting directly to the CEO, the VP of Engineering will both lead their organization, and as a member of the leadership team, contribute to the overall development of Democracy Works’ strategy and operations.

As VP of Engineering, you'll be helping Democracy Works consolidate our explosive growth over the past four years, both in terms of our technology and our team. We’re considering how our datasets and products can best improve the voting experience in the years to come, and how to build a department and engineering team that can sustainably scale alongside our infrastructure in order to get us there. Our technical work will include questions of how to manage massive datasets of election information shared across products, creating services used by some of the largest sites on the Internet (i.e. Google and Facebook) that touch millions of users, shipping new features while resolving technical debt and building more sustainably for the future, introducing specialization within our engineering team, and looking for opportunities to make our tools more equitable, cohesive, and measurable to best support our mission.

As the VP Engineering, you will —

• Develop processes, policies and technical roadmaps that produce high quality software, serve voters, and deliver on organizational mission and strategy and oversee the internal technology needs of the organization including cyber and data security and data governance.
• Recruit, train, manage, and retain a diverse engineering team that aligns with organizational mission and values and meets performance goals.
• Build an engineering culture that centers equity and inclusion, and fosters an engaging staff culture that provides the team with professional growth opportunities.
• Develop and shape the organization’s technical strategy and vision to align with organizational strategic priorities.
• Partner with all other internal departments to create effective cross-organizational collaboration for creating and shipping products that improve the voter experience.
• Support engineers in their technical decision-making.
• Lead budgeting and resource decisions for the engineering function
• Execute on other tasks as may be assigned.

You are someone who —

• Leadership and management
  • Has the skills to manage an engineering team and approaches managing people via empathy, team building, and overall staff development.
  • Has proven experience managing, communicating, inspiring, and leading teams through change.
  • Is capable of working with a diverse and distributed team across multiple time zones and building an inclusive team culture.
  • Defines success not just in terms of product releases, but also in creating an environment where people can grow and thrive.
• Communication
  • Has excellent interpersonal abilities including strong listening, writing, and verbal skills.
  • Demonstrates effectiveness in presenting ideas to a variety of internal and external audiences and for multiple and diverse purposes.
  • Has the ability to convey technical topics in easy-to-understand terms and work collaboratively with cross-functional teams and external partners.
• Decision-Making
  • Has the ability to evaluate risks and opportunities.
  • Uses analytical and problem-solving skills.
  • Takes initiative in moving decisions forward.
  • Is comfortable delegating decision-making and developing inclusive and transparent decision-making processes.
  • Has the ability to set and stick to budgets and priorities; understanding when to say ‘no’ to a request and when to change course to meet an urgent need.
• Partnership and Relationship Building
  • Possesses strong partnership building skills for collaboration with peers and external strategic partners.
  • Possesses strong professional presence and is seen externally as a key representative of Democracy Works and the engineering team.
  • Is able to prioritize their own work and the work of others. Understands how their work impacts other departments as well as the overall mission, strategy and objectives of Democracy Works.

You have experience —

• 10+ years managing technical teams; with experience managing both individuals and managers, including teams of at least 12 people and ideally over 20 people.
• Experience dealing with internal and external stakeholders. Able to explain technical tradeoffs, timelines, decisions, and implications to the senior management team and other team members. Ability to convey complex ideas briefly and simply.
• Experience recruiting, hiring, and retaining a diverse team.
• Experience building alignment between engineering, product, design, and business/program teams, with a track record of scaling teams and the products they build to serve tens of millions of users.
• Experience delivering high quality software effectively, quickly, and efficiently in a results-oriented environment, operating in an agile delivery model.

How we work

Because elections take place everywhere, our employees work from practically every state in the union. We embrace working remotely as the default. Our positions require regular, daily use of a computer (including the use of G-Suite and Slack) to conduct work and communicate with colleagues. We also have regular operating hours (10 am to 6 pm Eastern, Monday to Friday).

For those who prefer to work from an office, we are headquartered in Brooklyn, NY, and we provide support for co-working spaces around the country. We are happy to share more details about the office, including accessibility information, as on-site visits are planned.

Benefits

As a member of the team, some of the benefits you’ll enjoy include:

• 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision option for you and your dependents
• 12 floating holidays and 25 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) per year
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• $1000 towards professional development activities

We also offer a 403(b) retirement plan, stipends for equipment and internet reimbursement, and annual Calm or Headspace subscription reimbursements.

To Apply

Please attach your resume and answers to the following questions:

• How did you find this job listing?
• Why are you interested in this role and working at Democracy Works?
• Are you authorized to work lawfully in the United States for Democracy Works?

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) in Hiring

Democracy Works is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate against applicants based on race, religion, color, disability, medical condition, legally protected genetic information, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, gender identity or expression, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions), age, veteran status or other legally protected characteristics.

As part of our application, you’ll see an optional form used to collect U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) demographic information. Please note the categories used in this survey are set by the EEOC and may not reflect all existing categories.The data collected in this form is anonymized and is used in our EEOC reporting and in ongoing assessment of our recruitment practices.

Democracy Works follows the I-9 requirements of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Immigration sponsorship is not available for this position, and you must possess your own work authorization in the U.S. now and in the future to continue working in this position.

Please reach out to hr@democracy.works if you have any questions about our process or if you need an accommodation for a medical condition during the hiring process.