Protect Democracy seeks to hire at least one (possibly two) highly motivated Engineering Managers as we scale up our work at the intersection of advanced technology and democracy, including our new AI for Democracy Action Lab—a multidisciplinary, nonpartisan "action tank" that builds tech tools and shapes law and policy to safeguard and enhance democracy in the AI era. This position is remote* and based in the US. The priority application deadline for this role is March 22, 2026.
At Protect Democracy, we bring an integrated advocacy approach to solving the most pressing issues facing U.S. democracy. Our engineers build products that support our mission alongside legal and policy experts, litigators, organizers, and communications strategists. Together, we have built novel products to address a range of critical pro-democracy use cases, from enhancing the security and confidence in our elections to making federal spending more transparent and accountable, to informing and inspiring advocacy for proportional representation.
We aim to scale our work at the intersection of cutting-edge AI technology and critical democracy challenges, including by developing products that help democracy organizers work more safely and effectively, making government more transparent and accountable, and strengthening civic institutions.
Position overview:
The priorities for this role are: (1) managing and mentoring our engineering team and evolving our engineering practices, and (2) developing a strategic technical vision and foundation for ourAI for Democracy Action Lab. We’re looking for at least one Engineering Manager to lead how we leverage AI throughout the product development lifecycle and set the direction for how we can build AI tools that advance democracy in this era of rapid change.
As Engineering Manager, you’ll be responsible for leading a team of engineers to improve how we do our work together, making key technical decisions, and acting as a key node of collaboration across our organization. You'll also be responsible for establishing a foundation for the Lab’s product strategy and growth. In year one, you will lead product development cycles from prototype to launch, partner closely with internal and external stakeholders to accelerate the release of pro-democracy AI applications, and manage and grow an engineering team. This is an opportunity to shape how AI strengthens democracy while developing a high-impact technical team and infrastructure.
In this role, you will:
- Direct the team’s technical strategy and guide key architectural decisions, prioritizing scalable, sustainable, and robust systems that enable rapid experimentation and production quality;
- Lead product development cycles from prototype to launch, owning all of the code the team ships and championing engineering excellence by establishing and refining processes for high-quality, timely delivery;
- Lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers (whether full-time or contract), fostering their professional development through regular 1:1s, coaching, and performance management to build a highly effective and motivated team;
- Foster team culture that values experimentation, collaboration, and innovation;
- Build strong cross-functional relationships and facilitate collaboration with non-technical colleagues across the organization to ensure clear communication and alignment on goals;
- Shape team processes to support engineers working across short and long term projects, and integrating AI usage across our product development workflow;
- Lead the engineering team in building AI-powered features and consumer-facing products to solve the most pressing problems our democracy faces today, with a willingness to roll up your sleeves in the technical work whenever needed;
- Build systems and AI integrations that are sustainable and easily deployable using best practices, documentation, automated testing, monitoring, logging and putting security first.
Job requirements
The ideal candidate brings:
- Proven engineering leadership ability with 10+ years of experience in the software engineering industry, including at least 5 years of direct people management experience;
- A track record of successfully leading and scaling multiple high-performing teams, or a single team working across multiple initiatives;
- Excellent team and project management skills that provide clarity for engineers on priority and expectations;
- Experience using prompt engineering as a developer, and a vision for how to integrate the latest tooling across an engineering team;
- Experience with practical model selection depending on the nature of the project, and accounting for cost, speed, and accuracy;
- Thrives in early-stage environments where you're defining processes and making decisions with incomplete information and finite resources;
- Demonstrated ability to translate technical concepts to a non-technical audience with the goal of facilitating the best possible project/mission outcomes;
- Passion for applying technology to strengthen democratic institutions with a thoughtful approach to AI risks, transparency and accountability;
- Deep understanding of security best practices across all aspects of application development including authentication, data protection, and incident response;
- Ability to foster collaborative relationships and work in a team environment with people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives;
- Growth mindset and enthusiasm for giving and receiving feedback up, down and sideways;
- Proven commitment to protecting and improving our democracy.
Preferred, but not required:
- Experience leading the development of a production application from 0 to 1, including public launch;
- Experience working in civic tech, campaign tech, or government technology and/or rapid experimentation environments (i.e. innovation labs, R&D teams);
- Experience hiring and building engineering teams;
- Background in NLP, information retrieval, or semantic search beyond basic LLM usage.
