Senior Frontend Developer (Contractor)

Senior Frontend Developer (Contractor)

Location

Remote. Applicants must be located within time zones UTC +0 to UTC +4.

Application Deadline:

Open until the position is filled.

With staff across six continents and hubs in Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, and Sarajevo, OCCRP is one of the largest investigative journalism organizations in the world. We are a nonprofit, mission-driven newsroom that partners with other media outlets to publish stories that spur action. OCCRP is also a media development platform that advances investigative reporting worldwide.

Our mission is to spread and strengthen investigative journalism around the world and expose crime and corruption so the public can hold power to account. Our work has three main pillars: We collaborate with investigative journalists to publish hard-hitting stories that spark change; we provide training, tools, and infrastructure so nonprofit media outlets can thrive; and we develop technology and innovations that advance the entire industry.

Position overview:

We’re working on a new implementation of Aleph, a tool to index and link research material for investigative journalism. The goal is to give investigative journalists an effective and user-friendly “big data” type tool to deal with mountains of documents.

Part of that is building a new frontend from the ground up, first to improve the existing features, and then to develop new features.

We’re not looking for a specific tech stack, but rather the right person to build a good foundation. You can "bring your own tech stack" – anything reasonably mainstream-y is fine.

Tech stack

• Candidates should have reasonable experience with the core of their selected tech stack. Almost everyone makes mistakes when first using $new_tech, which is only natural. This is a small team with some deadlines, without a lot of room for experimentation with the latest greatest JavaScript thingy.
• We want something reliable and solid. "Boring tech". It should still work in five years, and any competent developer should be able to start working on it with a relatively short lead time.
• Should have a reasonable dependency tree; in the dozens, not hundreds and certainly not thousands. It's not a crime to write 50 lines of code yourself if that saves adding a whole bunch of dependencies.
• Good developer experience: changes should show up in hundreds of milliseconds, not seconds.

Person Description

You'll have a fair bit of autonomy in deciding how to approach things. We need someone who can make reasonable technical decisions on their own based on the scope and goals of OCCRP and the project without a ton of guidance up-front.

The initial focus will mainly be on re-implementing the existing frontend, after which the focus will shift to new features.

You will be working with a UX designer and we’re not looking for a UX expert, but you should have familiarity with good UX design. You will be joining a team of three backend developers, a UX design researcher, and a product manager. Everyone works fully remote.

While this is primarily a frontend position, willingness to learn at least some Go basics would be good (it’s okay if you don’t know Go).

To Apply:

Please upload a resume, cover letter and a brief description of your proposed tech stack and why you think it meets the requirements. This doesn't need to be very detailed – two to four paragraphs is enough. As mentioned, pretty much $any tech stack is fine – we're fairly open about this.

LINK: https://occrp.bamboohr.com/careers/34

All applications must be submitted in English. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

As an equal opportunity employer, OCCRP values having a diverse workforce and continuously strives to maintain an inclusive and equitable workplace. We offer competitive compensation and benefits and encourage people with a diverse range of backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate against any person based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex, medical conditions, family status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, disability, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristics. If you are a qualified applicant requiring assistance or an accommodation to complete any step of the application process, please contact hr(at)occrp.org.