Senior Staff Software Engineer, AI and Tools

Change.org is forming a new Tools Team to power their next generation of internal systems, automation, and AI enablement. As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you will architect and operationalize critical AI-powered internal systems, providing technical leadership and establishing standards for workflows and automation.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the transformation of ambiguous, cross-functional business needs into well-scoped technical problem statements, and drive the creation of rapid AI-powered proofs of concept that validate direction and inform longer-term architectural decisions
• Define and ship foundational AI and automation architectures (agentic systems, orchestration patterns, governance frameworks) that become organizational standards
• Lead end-to-end delivery of complex AI-driven internal products that integrate deeply with core systems, improving efficiency and decision-making across multiple functions
• Develop and enhance engineering productivity with introduction of new tools, automation, and workflows
• Establish methods, templates, and reusable components that increase the velocity of other engineers and cross-functional teams building automations or AI workflows
• Drive safety, reliability, and human-in-the-loop design across AI systems — creating monitoring, approval, observability, and guardrail frameworks that scale
• Influence and align cross-functional stakeholders (Product, Ops, MarComms, Engineering leadership) around AI strategy, technical direction, and prioritization
• Mentor and level up engineers through architectural guidance, code review, technical design leadership, and thought partnership
• Contribute to Change.org’s AI governance, adoption strategy, and platform decisions including tools like v0 by Vercel, Retool, and internal automation frameworks
• This job is expected to participate in our on call rotation

Requirements:

• 8–12+ years of professional software engineering experience, including substantial experience owning complex systems, platforms, or internal tools
• Demonstrated expertise designing and shipping AI-enabled systems — including experience with LLM APIs, agentic frameworks, orchestration tools, retrieval pipelines, or automated decision systems
• Significant experience integrating with complex third-party systems and designing reliable, secure automation flows
• Experience establishing engineering standards, defining architectural patterns, and guiding teams through major technical or strategic decisions
• Familiarity with security, privacy, data governance, and reliability practices for AI-augmented tools
• AI-First Technical Leadership: Demonstrates deep practical experience with AI systems, agentic workflows, and automation architectures. Can evaluate tradeoffs, set direction, and apply judgment in ambiguous spaces
• Architectural Excellence & Systems Thinking: Designs long-term, scalable internal systems that cut across domains; anticipates second-order effects, operational risks, and maintainability concerns
• Full-Stack + Integrations Expertise: Comfortable with end-to-end implementation: frontend prototypes, backend services, integrations with third-party systems, cloud infrastructure, and API ecosystems
• Cross-Functional Influence: Navigates ambiguity, synthesizes complex needs, and persuades diverse stakeholders. Communicates decisions clearly and shapes organizational understanding of AI capabilities
• Enablement Mindset: Builds tools, frameworks, and patterns that multiply the productivity of engineers and non-technical teams; establishes standards rather than just delivering features
• Strategic Prototyping & Rapid Iteration: Can move quickly when needed — exploring, validating, and scaling solutions while balancing short-term experimentation and long-term architectural integrity
• Experience with vector databases, RAG architectures, or model fine-tuning
• Experience with Vercel, Retool, or similar platforms
• Prior contributions to open-source AI frameworks or automation tooling
• Experience mentoring engineers or shaping organizational technical strategy