Contract Web Developer (Part-time)
Unified · Austin, TX/Remote (US)
Overview
Unified is seeking a part-time / contract Web Developer to contribute to the continued development of the Unified web app, which is built with React. In this role, you will be implementing a wide variety of features in the web app and supporting the full-time web development team.
The ideal candidate fits the following criteria:
- Has previous experience building web apps with React
- Is familiar with and a regular user of social media products (e.g., Blue Sky, X, Threads, Instagram, etc.)
- Can dedicate 6-10 hours per week to this role
About the company
Unified is the social network for activism. Our platform provides a comprehensive organizing toolkit within a fully-featured social networking app to allow organizers and activists to build vibrant communities committed to bettering the world around them.
We’re currently in public beta and have over 1,500 activists on the platform. We have interest from over 900 advocacy, non-profit, and political organizations from across the country and plan to onboard these groups and over 100,000 of their members by the end of the year.
Our current focus is on providing a platform that supports the following broad use cases:
- Easy discovery of activists focusing on issues you’re interested in.
- Connecting with those activists via social feeds and private communities.
- Amplifying the activists’ work by sharing content and taking action on their behalf.
Over time, we plan to support a variety of specific activism needs through a wide mix of product features, including the following use cases that have been raised by interested groups:
- Coordinate delegates during a national political convention
- Mobilizing Gen-Z activists in Wisconsin
- Running for mayor of Houston
- Promoting the social justice work of podcast guests
- Recruiting candidates to run for office
- Unionizing workplaces
- Coordinating volunteer activity for a sorority
- …and many more
Our ambition is to build a platform and company that supports millions of activists across the US and eventually the world.
About the product
Unified is currently available through mobile and web applications. The mobile application is further along than its web counterpart, but both currently or will eventually support the following features:
- Account creation via email, phone, and oauth.
- Creating social media posts that can include text, images, videos, and actions.
- Displaying an algorithmically-ranked social feed.
- Creating organizing actions such as registering voters, petitioning elected officials, and more.
- Viewing, liking, and replying to posts.
- Following and viewing other users.
- Engaging in DMs or group chats (includes E2E encryption).
- Setting up and managing communities of hundreds or thousands or volunteers.
- Hosting and RSVPing to events.
- Donating to activists or purchasing monthly subscriptions to support organizers.
Responsibilities
As a Contract Web Developer, your responsibilities will include:
- Receiving tasks and feature requests from our Lead Web Developer.
- Implementing new features using written specifications and Figma-based mockups.
- Working with our Lead Web Developer and other team members to ensure your work meets requirements.
- Identifying, responding to, and resolving bugs and related issues to maintain a smooth and consistent user experience.
- Ensuring code quality by writing maintainable and reusable code.
Here are some example projects you may take on:
- Implementing an Explore section in the web app that displays trending topics (as provided by our internal API) and allows users to search for other content.
- Updating the design of posts on our home feed.
- Displaying a list of the user’s notifications that links to relevant posts, users, etc.
Requirements
Specific technical skills that will be helpful in this role include:
- Proficiency with React.js and previous experience building React-based applications.
- Proficiency with Javascript/HTML/CSS
- Proficiency with Next.js
- Familiarity with Tailwind
- Familiarity with TypeScript
- Experience with Context API, Redux, or Simple State
- Experience using APIs to perform CRUD or more advanced business logic for a web application
- Basic understanding of what it takes to host a web frontend on a server
- Using gitlab/github for code management and version control
- Using JIRA or similar tools for task management, project estimation, and team communication
- Using Figma to translate design requirements to CSS or other styling frameworks
And while contract workers are rightfully not required to meet the same organizational/cultural requirements as full-time employees, iIt’s probably still helpful to know what kind of personal characteristics will fit best with our full-time team. Those characteristics are:
- Defaults to action in everything they do
- Very organized and capable of efficient task management while adhering to project deadlines
- Extreme attention to detail (e.g., ensuring UI/UX is implemented exactly as designed)
- Highly responsive to other team members’ requests
- Takes time to learn new tools or best practices when necessary
- Listens to others and seeks out feedback from team members and third parties
- Is very engaged in understanding the organizations and individuals whom we serve
What this role offers
We want to build a team of passionate, experienced individuals that are driven to better the world around them. We want to work with others who have the same drive. To foster this, we work hard to offer a supportive work environment where team members, including contractors, feel a shared purpose, bond with one another, and are compensated competitively.
Pay for this role will be set at $40/hr - $75/hr, depending on experience and qualifications. There will be 6-10 hours of work available per week.
