Full-stack Software Engineer Consultant (Temporary - 6 months contract) Save

About The Organization

ReFED is a national nonprofit working to end food loss and waste across the food system by advancing data-driven solutions to the problem. ReFED leverages data and insights to highlight supply chain inefficiencies and economic opportunities; mobilizes and connects people to take targeted action; and catalyzes capital to spur innovation and scale high-impact initiatives. ReFED’s goal is a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food system that optimizes environmental resources, minimizes climate impacts, and makes the best use of the food we grow.

About the Team

ReFED is an entirely remote organization with 30 staff distributed across the U.S. and Canada. This contractor would work with the product engineering team, which is a team of three full time engineers with a variety of data science, backend and frontend expertise guided by the VP of Product. The engineering team works across AWS and GCP in Python, SQL, Ruby and JS, using a traditional two week sprint Agile work cadence.

Scope of Work

The Full-stack Software Engineer Consultant will help ReFED’s Product Engineering team to enhance the Insights Engine and develop new data and analytical products that help users reduce food waste. This contract engagement will be managed by the Director of Engineering in close collaboration with the Vice President of Product. This is a temporary contract position with the possibility of extension depending on organizational needs and performance.

Scope of Responsibilities:

• Write and maintain clean, testable, and well-documented code consistent with established standards and conventions
• Troubleshoot and remediate problematic software as necessary
• Refactor and document existing code as necessary
• Create and maintain product and application documentation as necessary
• Participate in the scrum process when available and contribute coding and technical expertise to complete prioritized Sprint goals with the team (While the contractor will not be required to attend all scrum meetings, the team meets daily for standup at 9:45am-10am PST and does more in depth sprint planning and retros every other wednesday)

Key Deliverables:

This will be a highly collaborative engagement where the primary interactions will include communications over video, phone, email, documents, and Slack. Specific deliverables may evolve as the underlying project makes progress, but should generally include:

• We are in the process of building a new full-stack product for businesses to monitor and reduce food waste, in a combination of NextJS/React/Prisma/Python. We expect this contractor to contribute to the creation of this product alongside other engineers on the engineering team. The contractor will likely move between front and backend tasks as needed, depending on team priorities. The contractor may be asked to design smaller components of the product if they have the appropriate expertise, but will not be responsible for the overall system design.
• Our insights engine (where we display current food waste trends) and capital tracker (where we monitor food waste investment activity) rely on existing API infrastructure in Ruby and frontend in React. We expect this contractor will improve on this infrastructure, by adding features, monitoring capabilities, and improving documentation.

Minimum Skills and Qualifications:

• Proficiency with software development and coding in various languages (NextJS, React, Python, TypeScript, Rails, SQL, etc.)
• Direct experience designing, implementing, deploying and supporting web applications and/or enterprise SaaS products
• Practical understanding of modern web architecture, design patterns, and software development best practices
• Familiarity with software development and collaboration tools (Jira, Github, Slack, etc.)
• Comfort working with remote, Agile/Scrum software development teams
• Excellent communication skills, adept at distilling ambiguous or complex ideas into practical documentation

Desirable Skills and Qualifications:

• Direct experience building data analytics or business intelligence products
• Experience implementing and supporting customer-facing APIs
• Familiarity with data science and data engineering concepts and technologies
• Practical, hands-on experience with major cloud infrastructure providers (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.)
• A strong foundation in cybersecurity principles and data governance best practices

Time Commitment:

• Estimated Hours Per Week: 20-40 hours, depending on contractor availability and ReFED priorities
• Duration: 6 months
• Work Environment: Fully remote
• Type of Role: Temporary, contract-based

Compensation:

• Rate of Pay: $125 per hour (negotiable based on experience)
• Payments will be processed monthly and based on hours worked and invoiced
• Full-stack Software Engineer Consultant is responsible for tracking hours worked

Application Form:

Please fill out this contract opportunity form by April 11, 2025 to apply.

• Select “Full Stack Software Engineer Consultant" as the contract
• Include a letter of interest of why you think you would be a good fit along with your hourly rate in the “Proposal” field.
• Additional items like your CV (required) and any relevant example projects (optional) can be included in the “Supplemental” field.

Selection Process:

If considered for the position, you will be asked to do an approximately 2 hour long take home assignment assessing your full stack engineering skills, and to have a conversation with the team to determine if you are a good fit.