Job Opening: OONI Backend Developer

Are you a backend developer interested in defending human rights on the internet? We have a job opening for you!

The OONI team (a non-profit measuring internet censorship globally) is looking for a dedicated Backend Developer to work on our backend components and infrastructure, and to provide OONI data analysis support for our research efforts.

Job description

By joining our team, you will work on OONI’s backend components, ensuring the stable and reliable performance of our infrastructure in response to the growing global coverage of measurements. You will also provide OONI data analysis support for OONI research reports and in support of the research of our partners.

This is a full-time 12-month contract position, starting ASAP. The contract may be extended depending on the contractor’s performance and the availability of funds. The yearly contractor fee will be determined depending on the contractor’s relevant experience and expertise.

This is a fully remote position. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the OONI team always worked remotely online. We communicate and coordinate through OONI Slack channels, we have regular video/voice meetings, and we track our work on GitHub.

Our team members are currently based in Europe, and Africa, and North America, but we encourage applications from anywhere in the world. To effectively coordinate with our team members, you should be comfortable working with people based in the Central European time zone.

What you’ll do

• Contribute to the design, implementation and maintenance of our backend components and infrastructure.
• Help ensure the stability and reliability of our infrastructure: Create and maintain monitoring systems, and respond to alerts as needed. Troubleshoot issues and outages.
• Perform routine server maintenance. Procure and configure new infrastructure when necessary.
• Provide OONI data analysis support for OONI research reports and in support of the research of our partners.
• Collaborate with OONI’s development team to optimize solutions for performance, security and maintenance.
• Create new and enhance existing APIs to support building and improving upon OONI’s features and products.
• Participate in technical design documentation, and code reviews.
• Work collaboratively with team members to contribute to OONI’s roadmap and priorities.

Required skills and qualifications

• 2-4 years of experience working as a Backend Developer in a similar environment.
• Extensive experience with python.
• Experience implementing and maintaining monitoring and alerting systems.
• Have experience and be comfortable with others reviewing your code and design; have experience and be comfortable reviewing others’ code.
• Eager to learn and work collaboratively with the OONI team.
• Comfortable working remotely with a geographically distributed team.
• Ability to be successful in a remote-only work environment.
• Good at asynchronous communication and comfortable communicating via Slack, email, and issue trackers.
• Self-directed, motivated, and aligned with our mission.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience designing, implementing, and maintaining scalable complex network applications.
• Possess the confidence to refactor code and write unit tests.
• Familiarity with the network measurement field.
• Data analysis experience.
• Experience with open source software development, including working with distributed teams across different time zones containing employees and volunteers of differing skill levels.
• Basic familiarity with distributed version control systems.
• Experience with devops and deployment automation.
• Experience with prometheus and grafana.
• Experience with golang.
• Contributed significant chunks of code to multiple open source projects in the past.
• General understanding of internet censorship and digital rights issues.
• Be passionate about internet freedom and interested in contributing to it in a concrete way!

A degree is great but not required if you have the right experience.

How to apply

To apply, please email us the following documents:

• CV/resume. Please share a PDF of your CV/resume, which includes links to one or several code samples (of which you are authorized to share), and to your GitHub or GitLab profile.
• Cover letter. Let us know how your qualifications and experience meet the requirements of this job position. Please include the reasons why you want to work with OONI.

Please send your email to jobs at openobservatory dot org with “OONI Backend Developer” in the subject line.

Note: We may request contact details for 2 professional references if you are shortlisted for the position.

About OONI

The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is a free software project – born out of the Tor Project in 2012 – that aims to empower decentralized efforts in increasing transparency of internet censorship around the world.

We build free software (OONI Probe) that enables anyone to independently detect internet censorship on their network. To increase transparency of internet censorship, we publish censorship measurements as open data in near real-time. This data supports research and advocacy efforts investigating and fighting internet censorship worldwide.

More information about OONI is available in our Mission Statement and FAQ.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We have a global and diverse community and we strive to hire people who can best serve our community.

Our Code of Conduct describes how we aim to provide a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment for our team and community.

We value and encourage diversity and consider applicants for all positions without regard to national origin, gender, gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical characteristics, disability, religion, and age.

We encourage people subject to systemic bias to apply, including people of color, indigenous people, LGBTQIA+ people, women, and any other person who is part of a group that is underrepresented in tech.