Code for America believes in transforming government services through technology, and they are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to enhance accessibility and effectiveness of public services. The role involves contributing to the entire product lifecycle, acting as a subject matter expert, and mentoring other engineers.
Responsibilities:
- Specialty Engineering
- Every Staff Engineer at Code for America has a specialty area for which they act as a Subject Matter Expert in contexts and conversations across the organization
- Examples of how Specialty Engineering knowledge is currently applied:
- Facilitating strategy and roadmapping conversations about areas of expertise
- Own technical decision making and documentation around the implementation and architecture of your SME area
- Authoring developer-centric documentation and best practice guidelines
- Working with other engineering leaders on how to upskill their teams in your area of expertise
- Create and maintain detailed learning and reference materials, including practical examples and prototypes
- Product Engineering
- 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
- Support Engineering’s culture of writing by producing quality documentation and learning materials for internal and external audiences
- Mentorship
- Be a friendly face,eager collaborator, and mentor for other software engineers in your particular area of expertise
- Other duties as assigned
Requirements:
- 10+ years of full-stack web development experience, with strong expertise in system architecture, data modeling, and API design
- 6+ years of experience developing and supporting multilingual web applications
- 6+ years working with Agile Software Development models like Scrum, XP, TDD, or BDD
- Demonstrable expert-level skills in applied computer science and web fundamentals, including data structures, design patterns, and application architecture
- Eager for collaboration with peers, and providing technical and professional mentorship
- Truly excellent written and verbal communication skills in English
- Expert understanding and experience communicating with cross-functional peers, and in translating those conversations into actionable tasks
- Specialized expertise in Javascript / Typescript/ Web-based software engineering with an emphasis on browser experiences
- Experience with JavaScript and its derivatives, including both modern frameworks (React, Vue, etc) and ‘vanilla' patterns and tools
- Solid Understanding of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
- Proven experience conducting experience evaluations or audits for accessibility
- Understanding of UX patterns and principles, and in translating product and UX requirements into actionable tasks
- Evaluating, investigating, and optimizing client experience and code performance in front-end code
- Experience with cloud infrastructure and IaC tooling
- Experience with making government services better for people who need them most
- Personal or professional experience with the justice system, social safety net, or other mission relevant experience