Senior Engineering Manager, Starter Onboarding
Change.org is searching for a Senior Engineering Manager with the Starter Onboarding team to design, validate, and scale the petition creation workflow using AI and experimentation to create meaningful change in the world. You will report to our VP of Engineering. As a key member of our Starter Onboarding team, you’ll drive the scale-out of the AI petition creation workflow to boost successful petition launches, partnering closely with Product, Design, and cross-functional teams to align technical execution with business goals.
We’re a social impact business (a public benefit company), and the world's largest social change platform with 100 million users, 40,000+ campaigns launched on the site every month, and a 100% user-generated revenue model. Our users win campaigns for change once every hour. We’re working for a world where no one is powerless, and where creating change is a part of everyday life. We’re just getting started and hope you’ll join us!
From mobilizing over 5 million people to investigate the fires in the Amazon, to mobilizing nearly 3 million against war and famine in Yemen, to large-scale mobilizations for the people of Iran and against the war in Ukraine, and calling for Racial Justice in the US, many movements were born on Change.org. Dozens of local, national, and international victories are happening every day thanks to the strength of our members who are changing the lives of people around the world. We want to help them go even further and we need your help!
Key Outcomes:
Scale out our AI petition creation workflow to increase the number of successful petitions
Collaborate deeply with Product, Design, and other partners to define goals, prioritize work, and ensure seamless alignment between technical implementation and business outcomes.
Provide technical influence, guidance and feedback to team members, leveraging deep expertise to mentor and coach them effectively, and contributing to the overall growth and success of the teams.
Support the growth of engineers through coaching, regular feedback, and thoughtful career development, enabling strong performance across levels and specializations.
Identify opportunities to improve development processes and workflows, implementing changes that implement changes that reduce friction, enhance team productivity, and ensure adherence to best practices
This job is expected to participate in our on call rotation.
The most important core competencies for the role are:
0 -> 1 Product Execution
A bias towards movement and experimentation in delivering product
Experience with turning ambiguity into iterative prototypes, leveraging AI tooling for rapid concept validation
Close collaboration with Product and Design partners to set goals, measure outcomes, and ship quickly.
Communication & Collaboration
Communicate proactively and effectively with executive leadership, product partners, and cross-functional peers.
Represent engineering in strategic conversations, advocating for technical needs while deeply understanding business and user impact.
Promote transparency and shared understanding through clear documentation, inclusive decision-making, and regular syncs.
Leadership & Team Management
Develop and retain top engineering talent; provide clear growth paths and mentorship that supports both individual aspirations and team needs.
Foster a high-performance, inclusive, and collaborative team culture rooted in trust, feedback, and shared ownership.
Conduct thoughtful performance reviews, promote continuous learning, and ensure engineers thrive through regular coaching and development opportunities.
Technical Expertise
Ability to translate product briefs into executable technical plans, including identifying milestones, dependencies, and risks.
Strong architectural thinking across backend, frontend, and infrastructure — with a focus on system design and tradeoff analysis rather than hands-on coding.
Skilled at evaluating multiple approaches and articulating rationale in plain language for both technical and non-technical partners.
Experience guiding teams through ambiguity and making pragmatic decisions that balance speed, quality, and scalability.
Familiarity with modern web technologies (e.g. Node.js, Rails, React, GraphQL, cloud infrastructure) is useful, but depth of coding skill is less important than the ability to set direction, review proposals, and ensure technical soundness.
Target experience:
Engineering Leadership: 3+ years of experience managing engineering teams.
Software Development: 4+ years of hands-on experience as a full-stack, web-focused, software engineer.
0 -> 1 Experience: created teams or products from scratch, worked in early-stage startups or newly-minted business lines.
Tech Stack: 3+ years working in at least one of our core languages: Ruby or JavaScript/Typescript — alongside strong proficiency in React and modern frontend best practices.
Infrastructure: Experience with Terraform, Kubernetes, and AWS.
API Design: Experience developing RESTful APIs and GraphQL endpoints.
NICE TO HAVE: Experience with running feature experiments, multi-armed bandits + growth optimization experience (A/B testing)
Interested? Great! Here's what you should know:
This is a full time role, and we are open to folks in the United States or Canada.
This is a full time, remote role based in North America (USA, and CAN)
Our compensation philosophy is based on pay equity. All of our salaries are determined before we launch a role – they are based on a predetermined salary scale, the level on that scale and the cost of labor for that location. The annual salary of an Engineering Manager is $242,500 in SF and NYC, $230,500 in Austin, Boston, Chicago, LA, Seattle, Washington D.C., and $206,000 in all other US locations. The annual salary is CA$227,500 in Vancouver and Toronto and CA$208,000 in most other locations in Canada.
Benefits and perks also vary based on location.
Our evaluation processis as follows:
Recruiter Screen (45 mins) – Recruiting Team
Hiring Manager Interview (45 mins) – VP of Engineering
Team Interviews (~2 hrs) – Product, Engineering & Technical Operations Leaders
Product brief - (60 mins)
Executive Conversation (30 mins) – Executive Team Member
References
We know the confidence gap and imposter syndrome can get in the way of meeting amazing candidates like you, so please don’t hesitate to apply—we’d love to meet you. We also know it’s rare for someone to meet 100% of the qualifications. Please apply anyway!
We actively encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds and perspectives to apply. At Change.org, we are dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We invest in programs to support our diverse workforce, offer inclusive onboarding experiences and affinity groups, celebrate the heritage of our staff, provide training on working across differences, and maintain fair and transparent salary scales. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, or culture.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process for candidates with disabilities. If you need assistance, or an accommodation, please let your recruiter know once you are contacted about a role.
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