Engineering Manager (Elections & AI for Democracy Action Lab)

Protect Democracy seeks to hire a highly motivated Engineering Manager to join our team building on our foundational elections work, and scaling our new AI for Democracy Action Lab—a multidisciplinary, nonpartisan "action tank" that builds tech tools and shapes law and policy to safeguard and enhance democracy in the AI era. This position is remote* and based in the US.

In this transformative moment, we’re seeking an engineering leader who will leverage AI to transform both how we do our work as a team, and scale the tools we’re building that tackle the most pressing challenges facing our democracy today.

At Protect Democracy, we bring an integrated advocacy approach to solving issues facing U.S. democracy. Our engineers build products that support our mission alongside legal and policy experts, organizers, and communications strategists. Together, we have built novel products to address a range of critical pro-democracy use cases, from enhancing the security and confidence in our elections to making federal spending more transparent and accountable, to informing and inspiring advocacy for proportional representation.

This role is ideal for an experienced engineering manager who can lead a small engineering team to maximize impact through processes and mentorship, leverage AI throughout our product development lifecycle, and collaborate effectively with non-technical partners to bring ideas to life. This role will be a critical piece to improving upon our foundation and helping the team & organization grow the vision of how we can use technology to Protect Democracy. 

As Engineering Manager, you’ll be responsible for leading how engineers approach product building with evolving tools, making strategic technical decisions, and acting as a key node of collaboration across our organization. You'll also be responsible for supporting technical decisions for the AI for Democracy Action Lab’s product growth and strategy in year 1. This is an opportunity to shape how AI strengthens democracy.

• Direct the team’s technical strategy and guide key architectural decisions, prioritizing scalable, sustainable, and robust systems that enable rapid experimentation and production quality;

• Guide product development cycles from prototype to launch, championing engineering excellence by establishing and refining processes for high-quality, timely delivery;

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of engineers (whether full-time or contract), fostering their professional development through regular 1:1s, coaching, and performance management to build a highly effective and motivated team;

• Build strong cross-functional relationships and facilitate collaboration with non-technical colleagues across the organization to ensure clear communication and alignment on goals;

• Shape team processes to support engineers working across short and long term projects, and integrating AI usage across our product development workflow;

• Lead the engineering team in building AI-powered features and products to solve the most pressing problems our democracy faces today.