Software Engineer for Good

Are you passionate about designing and coding easy-to-use websites? Do you thrive in an environment where you can deploy code to production every day? Do you want to work on a site that actually makes an impact on people's lives?

GlobalGiving.org, an online marketplace for international grassroots charities, is looking for a Software Engineer for Good to join our small team of developers.

You will be responsible for coding, designing, and maintaining features on our site that inform, inspire, thrill, and connect our users. You'll take charge of new projects and features and see them all the way from a few loosely defined requirements to interface design, implementation, launch, and maintenance.

Although we're small, we've got our fingers in a lot of cookie jars. You'll have the opportunity to work with a lot of cutting edge technologies and make your great ideas a reality. Day-to-day tasks include Java and web programming, user interface design, being awesome, project management, bug fixing and website hygene, web analytics, customer service, and some limited server/database/back office administration.

You'll be expected to bring your "A game" and help us improve ours. We're a team that thrives on peer learning. We hope that you'll share your creative passion with the team and spread it over the nooks and crannies that is the English muffin of GlobalGiving.

Benefits include flexible work hours, a family-friendly culture, telecommuting one day a week, a fully loaded MacBook Pro with secondary monitor, a convenient downtown DC location, and a meaningful job where you can go home at night and say, "Today, my work helped rescue 97 girls from bonded labor in Nepal." (One of many true stories.) And don't worry - we've also got the usual benefits like health care, dental/vision, commuter benefits, 401K, and paid vacation.

Primary Responsibilities

• Programming: Our website is built on Java, Struts 2, Spring, iBatis, HTML/CSS/Javascript, and a lot of trial and error. You'll be expected to hit the ground running and deploy your first change to the site on your first day.
• Multi-Task: We always have a dozen different things going on. We use Scrum to keep everyone sane, but you'll need to gracefully juggle many projects simultaneous as if they were ninja stars to be happy here.
• Web Design: Write beautiful web pages using cross-browser compliant HTML/XHTML, CSS, and Javascript/jQuery.
• User Experience: Improve the experience of our users, including donors, project leaders, corporate partners, and our own staff.
• Numbers: We'll need your help analyzing our website performance and unmarketing efforts to find out what's working, what's not, and what we need to do to fix it. And fix it we shall.
• Cutting Edge: Research and identify relevant new technologies, tools, or tactics that can improve the efficiency of GlobalGiving's website or marketing efforts. Help us know what we don't know and help us figure out the answers.
• Customer Service: Customer service won't be your key focus, but everyone on the team pitches in to wow our customers and provide outstanding service to them. You will be expected to do the same, particularly at first, as there's no better way to learn about our organization and website than to help others understand it too.
• In Case of Emergency: In the event of a major natural disaster or news event, work with the rest of the team to update our site to reflect our relief efforts in a timely and relevant manner.
• Being Yourself: Sense of humor, desire to change the world, and #include <you.h>

Required Kung Fu Level Skills

• Java programming using sound OO principles. (Owning Design Patterns doesn't count!)
• Ability to write beautiful, cross-browser compliant HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
• You love shipping software frequently, helping users, and improving upon what you've built.
• Enough knowledge of Linux, Apache/Tomcat, and MySql to be trusted with sudo access.
• The ability to communicate ideas effectively, to listen to others' ideas, and to collaborate to arrive at great solutions.
• An ability to translate business requirements into well-designed technical solutions.
• Passionate belief in the mission of GlobalGiving and the vision to help us advance it

Cherry-On-Top Qualifications

• Bachelors degree (or higher) in computer science.
• Experience with MVC frameworks such as Struts 2, Spring, and MyBatis.
• You can link to a website that you've built.
• Up-to-date knowledge and ability to apply user interface design and user experience principles.
• Basic graphic design and image editing skills (Photoshop, Illustrator).

This is a full time position in Washington, D.C. Salary range will depend on skill and experience. Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States.

How to Apply

Interested? Great! Please email your resume to with your name and the phrase "Software Engineer for Good" somewhere in the subject line.

Awesome and engaging cover letters are welcome, but are certainly not required. (Seriously.) Boring or clearly copy-and-pasted cover letters from other applications will be marked as spam. (Yes, seriously.)

About GlobalGiving

The world is full of problems. GlobalGiving is full of solutions. Solutions run by innovative, grassroots projects and organizations that are working to educate children, feed the hungry, build houses, train women (and men) with job skills, and hundreds of other amazing things.

We run an online charity marketplace that gives social entrepreneurs and non-profits from anywhere in the world a chance to raise the money that they need to improve their communities. Since 2002, GlobalGiving has raised $84,919,124 from 322,727 donors who have supported 7,858 projects. For more information, browse our site, find a project that you care about, and see the change that you can make possible.

Our office is located at 1023 15th Street, NW, Washington DC and is just a few blocks from the Farragut North (Red Line) and McPherson Square (Blue or Orange Line) Metro stations.