Do you want to join us on our mission to shape democracies for the digital age? Are you looking for an international and fast-paced, yet collaborative and inclusive environment to thrive in?

You have come to the right place.

CitizenLab, a global social impact scale-up with its HQ in Brussels, and presence in New York, works to make public decision-making more participatory, inclusive, and responsive. The open-source SaaS platform is already being used by 350+ local governments and organizations in over 18 countries, facilitating two-way communication between governments and their residents. Since it was founded in 2015, CitizenLab has given 750,000+ community members a direct voice in local politics, has earned recognition as the 'Best Social Impact Startup in Europe', and was featured in outlets such as The New York Times and Forbes.

CitizenLab is looking for purpose-driven talent to join us on our mission to enable millions of people in cities across the globe to shape the future of their communities.

Tech Lead at CitizenLab (Methods squad)

As a Tech Lead at CitizenLab, your goal is to help the engineers align on task decomposition and planning, and guiding the high-level technical choices. Next to coaching and enabling your squad colleagues to contribute more effectively, you also actively contribute code yourself. Your small, cross-functional squad consist of a product manager, designer, and 3-5 cross-functional engineers.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Taking responsibility for the week-to-week planning of the squad, in close collaboration with your engineering colleagues and product manager.

• Guiding the squad through technical specifications and decomposition of tasks.

• Giving feedback to the designer and product manager on feasibility and effort of future work.

• Follow up on feature progress and report to the product manager and CTO.

• Identifying blockers and issues early on, and working together with the squad to prevent them.

• Implementing continuous process improvements to boost developer experience and productivity.

• Acting as a sounding board to developers and helping resolve technical challenges.

• Aligning with the CTO and lead architect on the technical direction of the product.

• Contributing code yourself, when all of the above has been taken care of.

At CitizenLab, we work in small teams where members collectively take ownership of the outcome of the features they build. We work in very small iterations and release continuously. We’re strong believers in user testing and understanding live product usage.

What do we expect from you?

• You have several years of experience in a technical leadership position, preferably in a tech scale-up environment.

• You have a collaborative, empathetic, and participatory leadership style. We are looking for a facilitator and mentor, more than a manager.

• You have experience working on user-facing web applications.
• Extensive knowledge of full-stack web applications is a must, experience with Ruby on Rails a strong bonus.

• Experience with React and Typescript, or similar.

• You have a keen interest in contributing to our digital democracy mission through our product and working on the topic of citizen participation.

• You’re located in a timezone within UTC-05 and UTC+03.

Eagerness to learn, talent, and enthusiasm are more important than ticking the boxes though. Even if not all desired requirements are met, but you're very excited about the role, we want to hear from you.

What can you expect from us?

• Unlock your full potential and create social impact at scale through our open-source product. Day-to-day, we work with local government leaders across the world to help them connect with their communities.

• Become a key factor in our rapid growth as scaleup (75 employees), and contribute to our international expansion.

• Work in a fast-paced, collaborative, and supportive environment. We share a participatory culture of autonomy and ownership by everyone, not only by leadership.

• Be part of our dynamic, international team. We are as serious about our work in digital democracy as we are about having fun on our journey together.

• Enjoy an informal work vibe with open communication and full transparency on results.

• Participate in our various in-person and remote team events, inspiring team lunches, our company book club, bi-quarterly strategic town halls, and yearly global team retreats.

• Spend 10% of your time on personal projects and self-development for the long run. We’re committed to both collective and individual growth.

• Receive a competitive salary package, incl. perks such as 26 days off, a professional development budget, a collective bonus plan, your own laptop, full flexibility on working from home, and much more.

CitizenLab is committed to being a diverse and inclusive workplace. Whilst we are proud of our cultural diversity and gender parity, we are aware of the limited racial diversity in our team and are committed to making a change on this. We strongly encourage people of different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives to apply.