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.
Change.org is the world’s largest platform for democracy.
At a time when dissatisfaction with democracy globally is at an all-time high, we’re investing heavily in using AI to build the most powerful tools in the world to give people greater voice, while bringing people across the political spectrum together to identify shared solutions.
Our core petitions platform, used by more than 100 million people annually, is growing rapidly - and we are rebuilding it from the ground-up using new tools to turn anyone into a powerful civic leader on the issues they care about. Soon we will launch a new platform to identify the >80% of issues that most people agree on, locally and nationally, and to mobilize hundreds of millions of people to advocate for those common-ground solutions.
To realize this vision, we’re expanding the most talented team in the world at the intersection of technology and social impact - all focused every day on building healthier democracies globally.
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 remote 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 process is 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 recognize that people assess their qualifications differently, and you may not meet every requirement listed. If you believe you could be successful in this role, we encourage you to apply.
Change.org is an open platform designed to serve people across the full range of viewpoints. Effectively supporting that mission requires teams with a wide variety of experiences, skills, and perspectives, which we consider essential to our work.
We are an equal opportunity employer and consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity [or expression], national origin, protected veteran status, disability, age, or any other status protected by law.
We're committed to protecting your data. To learn more, please review our Change.org Job Applicant Privacy Policy.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout our recruitment process. If you need assistance or an accommodation, please let your recruiter know.
Change.org voluntarily collects limited demographic information for government reporting and to support our diversity and inclusion efforts. Providing this information is entirely optional and anonymous, and is not used in hiring decisions.
The categories in this survey are standardized and may not reflect how everyone describes themselves.
Change.org participates in E-verify - click here to learn more.
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Professional-level English proficiency is required for all roles. While we are a global company, we ask that all resumes and application responses be submitted in English.