Junior Software Developer

Who we are

The News Literacy Project, founded in 2008, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization building a national movement to ensure that all students are skilled in news literacy before high school graduation, giving them the knowledge and ability to participate in civic society as well-informed, critical thinkers. NLP is the country’s leading provider of news literacy education and works with educators in all 50 states.

NLP is the leading provider of news literacy education to students primarily through our signature e-learning platform, Checkology®, and to the public through our website, RumorGuard®.

Where you fit in

The News Literacy Project empowers educators to teach middle and high school students how to sort fact from fiction in the digital age. Our signature product is the Checkology virtual classroom, a digital learning platform. Since its launch in 2016, almost 50,000 teachers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories have registered to use it. We are seeking a Junior Software Engineer who can take ownership of their learning and productively contribute to our code base quickly. This is a great opportunity for you to advance your skills in support of educators and students across the country.

We’re looking for someone who can have an immediate and meaningful impact on our work.

This position will initially report to the Vice President of Product.

About the position

You will join our product team which includes Technical Lead, Front End Developer, Product Designer, Product Analyst and the VP of Product. Our team is responsible for maintaining and enhancing an e-learning platform and an educator portal. We also are responsible for improving and supporting our websites, newslit.org, RumorGuard.org and topical or event-specific websites and email campaigns.

Specifically, in this job, you will:

• Build deep knowledge of our tech stacks and our products and collaborate with in-house and contract co-workers to update existing features and fix bugs, with a focus on analytics, privacy, and data security
• Support data integrations and reporting needs using EdTech standards
• Conduct code reviews with your peers
• Participate in work breakdown discussions to incrementally deliver value with each deployment
• Writing automation tests and conducting manual quality assurance tests
• Work with the product team to troubleshoot and debug reported issues
• Support data reporting needs of the organization

You will also:

• Collaborate with fun and dedicated people in all areas of our organization
• Teach our organization best practices in software development through your actions

About you

This position will directly impact many thousands of students in schools across the country and plays a pivotal role in shaping and achieving our organizational strategy. As the Jr. Software Engineer, you will partner with the Technical Lead to ensure our educators and students have the best experience with our products. In addition to the qualifications noted above, the successful candidate will have all or most of the following:

• Experience writing tests or code within a cross-functional engineering team
• Knowledge of agile software development practices and the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
• Experience with software testing concepts: unit testing, integration testing, and test-driven design principles
• Experience with components of our tech stack, including PHP (Laravel), NodeJS (React, NextJS, & TypeScript) and Database Management (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite)
• Familiarity with modern web technologies, frameworks, design pattern and best practices

This full-time position is virtual. Highly qualified candidates who live anywhere in the United States are encouraged to apply.

The News Literacy Project welcomes applicants from diverse backgrounds. We offer equal opportunity in employment for all qualified persons and prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, ancestry, age, veteran status, disability unrelated to job requirements, genetic information, military service or other protected status.

We deeply value diversity in the workplace and strongly believe that a diverse team enriches our organization and strengthens our ability to realize our mission (read/print NLP’s Organizational Values [PDF] and Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion [PDF]).