Senior Staff Software Engineer, AI and Tools
Change.org is forming a new Tools Team to power our next generation of internal systems, automation, and AI enablement. As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you will architect, drive, and operationalize our most critical AI-powered internal systems — establishing the technical patterns, governance, and long-term foundations that enable teams across Engineering, Product, Operations, MarComms, and the business to work faster and smarter.
This role is AI-first and highly strategic: you will turn ambiguous problem spaces into reliable, scalable systems, define standards for agentic workflows and automation, and provide technical leadership that materially elevates the organization’s AI maturity and developer productivity.
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:
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.
The most important core competencies for the role are:
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.
Target experience:
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.
Nice-to-have:
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
Interested? Great! Here's what you should know:
This is a full time role, and we are open to folks in the US, Canada, or Mexico.
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. Benefits and perks also vary based on location.
The annual salary of a Senior Staff Software Engineer is:
US
SF/NYC: $270,000 USD
Austin/Boston/Chicago/DC/LA/Seattle: $256,500 USD
All other cities: $229,500 USD
Canada
Vancouver/Toronto: $253,500 CAD
Calgary/Victoria: $235,000 CAD
All other cities: $231,500 CAD
Our evaluation processis as follows:
45 min Recruiter Screen
60 min Hiring Manager Interview
90 min Asynchronous Take-Home Exercise (time-boxed)
2 hours of Team Interviews (1 hour Product, 1 hour Engineering/DevX)
45 min Take-Home Presentation + Q&A with the hiring team
30 min Executive interview
Reference Checks
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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We are legally required to conduct EEOC reporting. While this is required by the federal government, we recognize that it does not include all genders and ethnicities. We want you to know that Change.org celebrates all identities and we thank you for your participation.
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While we are a global company, we ask that you please submit your resumes/application questions in English.