Mercy Corps
Location: HQ- Portland, OR or Remote (US working hours)
Position Status: Full-time, Regular
Salary: US: Starting salary for this role will be $91,000 to commensurate on experience, based on local benchmark for candidates outside of the United States.
About Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse, and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.
The MicroMentor Team
MicroMentor is an initiative of Mercy Corps and functions much like a technology start-up. Through a proprietary online mentoring platform, MicroMentor provides a technology solution that connects small business owners and entrepreneurs with skilled volunteer business mentors on a global scale. In addition to managing the general community of users, MicroMentor provides a niche product offering to corporations, international NGOs and government entities as a program-implementing partner
The Position
The Senior Software Engineer (Full Stack) will assist with all aspects of maintaining and further developing MicroMentor’s online mentoring platform. This includes the creation of innovative web applications across a range of technologies; including but not limited to: Python/Django (or equivalent), PostgreSQL, Wagtail CMS, and Zurb Foundation CSS framework. Experience with React is a plus. Additionally, they will work across the entire tech stack which will require reading/ interpreting design documentation and soliciting clarifications for documentation as well as writing proofs-of-concept or prototypes to explore undocumented software edges. Written code should be easily understood by other humans, including your future consultants and team members.
Essential Responsibilities
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
- Write clean, readable code for new and existing features
- Supplement feature development with unit and integration tests
- Anticipate edge cases and side effects of changes to the system
- Participate in code reviews
- Write technical documentation
- Read design documentation and solicit clarifications
- Create proofs-of-concept or prototypes, especially for situations where documentation is ambiguous or incomplete
- Report and diagnose defects and issues that may arise
- Help triage issues for product maintenance
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
- Help designers and other team members identify minimally viable feature sets
- Participate in estimation and scoping exercises
- Participate in brainstorms or other design meetings
- Help designers discover edge cases where development is problematic
- Help optimize product and project management processes
REQUIRED MEETINGS
- Weekly sprint planning
- Weekly product status check-ins
Supervisory Responsibility
None
Accountability
Reports Directly To: Director of Technology, MicroMentor
Works Directly With: MicroMentor Product Development Team
Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of our field projects.
Minimum Qualifications & Transferable Skills
- BA/BS degree and 5+ years of relevant industry experience (degree in computer science or related field preferred but not required)
- 5+ years experience working with web applications, both front – and back-end
- 3+ years experience using Django
- Experience with mobile-responsive front end development, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. Experience with Zurb Foundation and BEM principles preferred
- Experience working in a Distributed/Cloud-based environment to build highly scalable applications (AWS, Google Cloud, etc.)
- Experience with RESTful API development
- Experience with development of large-scale software projects
- Good understanding of MVC / MVVM concepts
- Experience with CMSes. Experience with Wagtail CMS preferred
- Experience with SQL or NoSQL database technologies
- Experience writing unit tests and integration tests.
- Some competency with sysops tasks (CI, containerization, severless hosting, autoscaling…) is a big plus
- Experience integrating with outside systems such as CRM, email providers & third-party APIs
- Experience with Salesforce integrations is a plus
Success Factors
A successful candidate will be able to communicate clearly using a variety of approaches and be fluent in English. They can read and interpret web software design documentation and solicit clarifications for documentation. They can make and demonstrate prototypes for features with ambiguous or incomplete documentation. They can read and write technical documentation and articulate ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences. They learn quickly and adapt. Finally, they can relate to people with different backgrounds and have awareness and sensitivity to multicultural international development work.
Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
The position is remote, and candidate need to work during Pacific Time zone. If the candidate is based in Portland, they can work onsite at the Mercy Corps Portland Office (not mandatory). Travel may be required for annual planning meetings in Portland HQ.
Ongoing Learning
In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.
We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.
We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.
Safeguarding & Ethics
Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.
As a safeguarding measure, Mercy Corps screens all potential US-Based employees. This is done following the conclusion of recruitment and prior to assuming full employment.
Our screening process is designed to be transparent and completed in partnership with new Team Members. You will have the opportunity to disclose any prior convictions at the conclusion of the recruitment process before the check is initiated. We ask that you do not disclose any prior convictions in your application materials or during the recruitment process.
Covid-19 Vaccine Policy for US-Based Employees
Mercy Corps has determined that, in an effort to protect the health, safety, and well-being of all Mercy Corps employees working in the United States, all U.S.-based employees must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19, regardless of prior COVID-19 infection status. This policy is necessary to ensure not only the safety of our workforce, but the ongoing functionality of the organization.
This policy will be revised as needed to comply with federal, state, and local requirements, and to respond to changing guidance from public health authorities.
For new employees this requirement goes into effect within 10 business days of employment. Team members that travel are expected to comply with host-country requirements, including vaccinations. Failure to comply may impact your employment. Proof of vaccination or exemption must be provided.