Nonprofit Remote Digest - Issue #495

Technovation (technovation.org) is a global tech education nonprofit that empowers girls and families to become leaders, creators and problem-solvers. Over the past 14 years, Technovation has engaged more than 100,000 underserved children and parents across 115+ countries through two flagship programs:

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Technovation - Technology and AI education for girls and families — www.technovation.org Technovation inspires girls and families to be leaders and problem solvers through technology. AI and technology education are for everyone.

Software Developer

As a Software Developer, you will play a key role on a small development team responsible for building and maintaining Technovation’s online learning platforms. You will help with all aspects of our platforms from ideation and technical design, to deployments and support.

This is a chance to be a part of a leading education technology nonprofit, in service to tens of thousands of girls and families in more than 100 countries.

One of the main goals of our work is to bring educational opportunities to underrepresented people and bring them into the technology workforce. We believe that, with the right learning opportunities and support, everyone has the ability to learn and to become technology creators.

About you:

You definitely don’t need to check every box but we’ll be looking for people with a bunch of these qualities.

• You are a socially conscious and compassionate person, and consider your job as a means to have a positive impact on the world.

• You like wearing multiple hats - working on a variety of problems with various technologies.

• You are a positive thinker and are able to work collaboratively and constructively as part of a small dev team.

• You are a self starter, have experience working on a remote team and managing your time.

• You are constantly trying to improve - yourself, the team, the process, the codebase, and the product.

• You have a great sense of humour and love to have fun while you work!

• You care about code quality, readability and maintainability.

• You don't mind that the code built isn't perfect, and like the challenge of improving it to meet our medium and long-term goals.

• You’ve been practicing your craft professionally for a while now. (We don't require any particular university education or degree).

Technical skills you’ll need to have:

• Experience with an object-oriented programming language and an MVC framework (we use both Ruby on Rails and Python/Django)

• Experience with testing methodologies (we use RSpec, pytest, and Jest)

• Experience with a modern frontend framework (we use Vue.js)

• Experience with CI/CD toolchains (we use GitHub, CircleCI and Heroku)

We also use a variety of other technologies that you will need to help support, including Cloudflare, New Relic, WordPress, Google Analytics, Google Apps, Google Location APIs, Surveymonkey, Mailchimp and Mandrill.

Bonus points for…

• Constructive communication and collaboration with both technical and non-technical teams

• Empathy for the end-user, for people of different cultures, languages, and education levels from your own

• Experience with agile and user-centered development practices (but you’re not dogmatic about it)

• Demonstrated commitment to STEM education, closing the gender gap in tech, or other issues related to Technovation’s mission

• Liking The IT Crowd, Sandi Metz, or whatever your fav is that you can share with us

Benefits

• Autonomy. In collaboration and negotiation with staff, you will make high level decisions about the work you will do, and how you will execute it. We don’t micromanage here. Just communicate clearly and discuss decisions with any people affected by it.

• Flexible schedule. Go to appointments and run errands when you need to, as long as you’re getting your work done in good quality and on time. We have core hours, but no one is looking over your shoulder.

• Ample paid time off. We offer 20 paid vacation days on top of regular holidays. (We also pay 100% of your healthcare coverage.)

• Meaningful work. You’ll contribute directly to a project that provides technology education to students from underserved areas in 100 countries, all while helping to address the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. Real people will express their gratitude to you in emails and slack chats.

• Workplace input. If you can convince your coworkers, we are open to adopting new workflows, software, etc, that you think would improve our organization. The only formal approval commonly needed is for budget.

• “Flat” organization. We do have a Leadership Team so that we know who to go to for help with issues and major decisions, and so that we have a clearly defined level of accountability, but you definitely won’t feel like you have a traditional boss or manager. All the way “up” to the CEO, we are transparent and honest. This isn’t fluff for a job posting, it’s something we actively practice and keep in check.

• The best salary we can at the moment. Sure, you can make more at a top software company but at Technovation you’ll have purpose-driven work, personal freedom, meaningful collaboration, and real decision making power within the organization. As an education nonprofit, we don’t answer to shareholders, investors, and quarterly reports. Instead, we get to make what’s best for us and our users, on our own schedule. We will do everything we can to enable you to do the best work of your career and take pride in it.

How to Apply

• Send the following to recruiting@technovation.org using the subject line “Developer”

• Resume (pdf format)

• In your email or as an attached pdf, briefly describe your experience building web apps and why you want to join Technovation

Optionally, you may also include:

• a link to your GitHub profile, personal portfolio or website

• an example of a website, an app, or anything built with code that you love, and a sentence or two about what specifically you admire about it (doesn't have to have been made by you)