Principal developer / Engineering Lead | Part-Time | Fully Remote

Boxtribute is looking for a senior full stack developer with 5+ years of software development experience to join our small, high-impact team on a freelance contract for ~6 months on a part-time basis starting as soon as possible. This is potentially convertible into a long-term contract depending on funding.

As a small volunteer-run nonprofit, we can offer an initial fixed compensation of up to €1500 / month.

Made by aid workers for aid workers, Boxtribute is an open-source web application that helps organizations source, store, and distribute donated goods to people in need in a fair and dignified way. Our Netherlands registered nonprofit (KVK number: 76346536 0000) is committed to providing access to our app at the lowest possible cost, so organizations can focus on delivering the great responsibility they bear.

Boxtribute is currently used in 6 countries across Europe and the Middle East, including the refugee hotspots of Bekaa Valley and the Aegean Islands. Altogether, Boxtribute distributed over 130,000 items to over 15,000 people in 2020. Join us as we expand to cover more hotspots and disaster areas and reach more people in need in 2021!**

Why work with us?

Are you an experienced software developer who wants both more flexibility in your schedule, while still applying your skills in making a positive contribution to the world? If so, this is the perfect opportunity for you!

At Boxtribute, you will be building open-source software that distributes clothes, shelter, hygiene items, and food to thousands of refugees and other people in need. Your solutions will give comfort and dignity to people trapped in the most vulnerable of situations, from people relying on their local clothing bank to get their families through tough times, to unaccompanied minors stuck in a refugee camp in Greece, fleeing terrorism and violence in their home country.

You will be driving a new release on a fresh technology stack, while working together with great people driven by the same common purpose. Through Boxtribute, we’ll prepare humanitarian relief for a sustainable future.

More reasons to work with us:

• Grow your experience working in distributed, multicultural teams! We have volunteers contributing from all over the world across 6 different time zones.
• Code and work through problems face-to-face with other people in our monthly virtual hackathons!
• Work with experienced tech leaders, including an ex-Amazonian and an ex-fintech CTO, who have decided to put the experience they’ve had building amazing products and running systems at scale to work for good.
• Get coached on technical design and architecture from a former Google search engineer, who volunteers as one of our advisors!
• Learn about the reality of relief work from people who have actually been on the ground — or have our support in going into the field yourself, if you so choose!
• Relax and beat the quarantine blues with our safe, socially distanced team game and movie nights.
• Be part of a culture that actively encourages your personal development — inside and outside the org. We are flexible so you can pursue your passions and/or have family time with our full support.

What will be my main responsibilities?

• Familiarizing yourself with the existing code base, using that knowledge to assist the team in sizing up the work then breaking it down into manageable chunks
• Driving development to release our solution on a new technology stack.
• Engaging in product development conversations in order to come to good technical decisions, with a demonstrated ability to evaluate, understand and clearly articulate the impact of those decisions
• Establishing and upholding best practices of modern software development methodologies (Agile, TDD)
• Helping the rest of the development team when they are blocked, and supporting them to learn independent problem solving skills.

How we work

We are an international, all-remote team We deploy using a scaled trunk-based development approach. We rely on Slack, Trello, and regular calls to make things come together 🙂

Our technology stack

Our partners currently work off of our legacy PHP application. However, we have started the process of planning and building out a new progressive web app based on Python/Flask and ReactJS, which would eventually fully replace the PHP app. The technical design and build-out of this new app is the main initiative that your software development efforts would be contributing to.

We use modern continuous delivery methods, and try to use the best tools for the job, with an eye for the sustainability of our project and financial constraints.

• [New App] Python/Flask on the back-end, ReactJS on the front-end

• A GraphQL API powered by MySQL / Peewee ORM for the data layer

• Google App Engine and Cloud SQL to host for minimal operational overhead

• CircleCI for continuous integration

• Cypress for browser-based testing

• Sentry and Google Stackdriver for error monitoring & tracing

• GitHub, Trello and Slack for collaboration

About you

You’ll be motivated by our goal, and have some experience leading diverse engineering teams. Working with a volunteer engineering team will provide some unique challenges and hopefully some fresh perspectives! Hopefully you have:

• 5+ years experience in software development, including 18+ months of experience with ReactJS or other modern front-end capable of creating a progressive web app

• Prior experience in Python, preferably in data analysis and/or web development environments

• A successful track record of working with test-driven development (TDD) in an agile environment and shipping production-ready code at a high velocity;

• A solid understanding about how to tool code for maintainability and scale, while simultaneously being able to make intelligent trade-offs with time to market

• A strong knowledge of modern approaches to web application architecture, including API design and integration

• Excellent collaboration and communication skills;

• A demonstrated ability to coach and mentor while sustaining a positive relationship with junior team members

• High comfort level in working with a diverse, remote, and dynamic/fluctuating team

BONUS:

• BSc. in Computer Science or a related field, or similar coursework and credentials

• Prior experience with Apollo GraphQL, PHP, relational database modeling

• Proficiency in API security frameworks, token management and user access control including OAuth, JWT, etc

• Familiarity with common web development tools like Docker and Github;

• Prior experience as a tech lead, or strong recommendations from the same

• Prior experience working or volunteering in the field on humanitarian aid and/or on the refugee and displaced persons crisis

• Prior experience working in a remote team

Compensation / How much time do I need to commit?

We are looking for someone who can commit a minimum of 3 days (24 hrs) / week for 6 months or longer. We can offer an initial fixed compensation of up to €1500 / month, preferably as a freelance contract, with an option to expand depending on the state of our funding applications.