Helm is a team of scientists, designers, engineers, and campaigners with a mission to power civic participation for a more equitable future. Building and sustaining issue-focused movements means meeting communities where they are. And that requires data on people's behaviors, motivations, and environments – not just partisanship or surface-level characteristics. Helm is working with issue advocates and community organizers to equip them with the data and tools they need to mobilize their communities even more effectively.

We are a growing team that values empathy, curiosity, diversity, transparency, and empowerment. So if you're highly motivated and passionate about increasing civic engagement, we encourage you to apply. 

As a Data / Backend Engineer in our agile cross functional Pod you will be empowered to solve problems, maintain, and improve systems that power our heritage CRM platform used everyday by hundreds of our customers. This will include individual and collaborative work with other engineers to plan, organize and deliver expert level Backend (PHP and Python) and Data (MySQL and MongoDB) solutions on AWS infrastructure. A successful candidate will bring strong analytical ability, contemporary cloud-native experience, and the ability to deliver results within a fast-moving, agile environment. This is a full-time position reporting to an Engineering Manager. Helm is a remote-first company.

What you’ll be doing:

• Working closely with a product owner and an experienced, highly motivated team of full stack engineers, data engineers, and devops engineers. Communicating progress, blockers, and issues with your team on a regular basis.
• Building and supporting contemporary cloud-native application architectures using 12-factor app concepts and microservices, and the cloud technologies used therein
• Creating and modifying complex SQL queries, managing and administering relational databases (RDBMS).
• NoSQL JSON-based document database querying, management, and administration.
• SDLC: building (build dependency and packaging tools), testing (unit, functional, and integration testing), and releasing software using Git version control, peer code reviews, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
• Addressing client support requests and production issues as prioritized by the product owner and the Client Success team.

Skills you should have:

• Software development with high level scripting/interpretive languages and their frameworks, ORMs, and build tools to develop cloud-native systems. Ideally PHP Laravel and Python.
• Data engineering with relational and docstore databases. Ideally MySQL and MongoDB.
• Knowledge of software engineering fundamentals, object oriented design patterns (E.g. composition vs. inheritance, Pub/Sub, Dependency Injection), and Domain Driven Design.
• Ability to work in a CLI environment and familiarity with shell commands and tools.

Skills you could have:

• Experience with Kafka and Stream Processing architecture (experience with Kafka Streams specifically desired)
• Experience with other Data Engineering tools such as Pandas, Spark, etc. and AWS services such as DMS, Athena, Glue, EMR, etc.
• An innate willingness to pick up, learn, and work with other technologies and environmental tooling like AWS, Datadog, Rollbar, Papertrail, etc.
• Experience with startups (<100 persons) and their need for active engagement, situational awareness, willingness to adapt and wear multiple hats.
• Experience with any of these technologies: ElasticSearch, Kafka, Redis, Jenkins, Scala, Javascript, Typescript, Node.js, AngularJS, Lumen, Ansible, Cloudformation, EC2, ECS, CloudWatch, SQS.
• Experience with Scala and functional programming

We know that the best candidates don't always check every box in a job description. Please apply if you are eager to grow professionally and develop your skills!

Helm prioritizes hiring and retaining talent that is passionate about our mission to power civic participation for a more equitable future. In support of that mission, we value diverse perspectives and career experience and prioritize equal pay. We base compensation for most positions on the current market value for those roles in the technology, politics, and advocacy sectors. 

The minimum annual base salary for this position is $95,000, commensurate with experience. Helm offers a robust benefits package in addition to salary.

Helm is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity of representation across all spectrums in its hiring. This includes, but is not limited to: race, gender, age, color, religion, national origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, educational background, political affiliation, or any other protected class.

That being said, we are a small company and therefore unable to accommodate candidates in need of work sponsorship at this time.