About the role
WHO WE ARE
ActBlue is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating cutting-edge technology that fuels Democratic victories and enables progressive causes to thrive.
Our vision is simple: building change through the power of people. Since our founding, we’ve been building innovative solutions to revolutionize grassroots fundraising – if you’ve donated to a Democratic campaign or a progressive organization online, you’ve probably used our platform!
We believe in putting power in the hands of small-dollar donors by helping thousands of groups — from local candidates to national movements — mobilize their communities and create a lasting impact. Every member of our team is deeply committed to advancing our shared mission and core values. Together, we are shaping the future of democracy.
THE OPPORTUNITY
As a Senior Software Engineer II on the AAA (Authentication, Authorization, and Access) team, you will be a senior technical contributor on one of ActBlue's most critical teams spanning Product Engineering and Platform. AAA secures the front door for everyone who powers progressive fundraising — we make sure the right people get in, the wrong ones don't, and the ecosystem never has to choose between moving fast and staying safe.
You'll own implementation and architecture decisions across identity, authentication, authorization, and access — work that every other product at ActBlue depends on. You'll work full-stack across our Ruby and TypeScript codebases to establish technical foundations that enable secure, scalable, and reliable access for donors, campaigns, organizations, and ActBlue employees.
You will work in concert with product, data, platform, ops, and security teams to identify and execute high-impact improvements that unlock new product opportunities and ensure the reliability, predictability, and scalability of our platform.
Our engineering and product organization is made up of empathetic and passionate people, organized into cross-functional teams that operate independently in alignment with broader organizational goals.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
- Lead the technical execution of large, cross-team initiatives — including unifying login across ActBlue products and shifting to role-based, least-privilege access controls at scale — contributing to architecture decisions and ensuring stability throughout.
- Work with your team to architect, refactor, and improve identity and access systems serving donors, campaigns, organizations, and internal users, breaking down work across epics and contributing technical expertise to shape roadmap prioritization.
- Partner with designers and product managers to shape the team's roadmap, anticipating stakeholder information needs and proactively raising potential competing product interests.
- Serve as a go-to resource for engineers across teams on architectural decisions, system design, and best practices — particularly in security, identity, and access control.
- Develop and champion best practices and design patterns to improve the maintainability and security posture of the platform.
- Demonstrate technical leadership through documentation, effective testing and monitoring, and clear, audience-oriented communication.
- Proactively share your knowledge and expertise with your teammates, fostering a culture of feedback and professional growth.
- Create spaces for individuals to be engaged, valued, and heard, setting cultural expectations around inclusivity within the team.
- Keep growing your craft. Seek out and act on feedback, learn from engineers across the org, and deepen your expertise, with your manager and teammates supporting you along the way.
WHAT YOU BRING
- 5-8+ years of relevant professional experience, with a track record of leading complex technical initiatives from conception through delivery: multiple engineers, ambiguous requirements, real stakes.
- Experience designing simple, maintainable solutions to complex problems using well-accepted design patterns informed by industry experience.
- A strong understanding of performance, scalability, and security best practices, with the ability to recommend improvements; familiarity with OAuth/OIDC/JWT authentication patterns is a plus.
- Experience serving as a technical consultant and trusted resource for engineers seeking guidance on architecture, system design, and complex debugging.
- Ability to communicate effectively with non-technical stakeholders and to collaboratively translate business requirements and strategic goals into technical solutions, adapting your communication style to the audience.
- A track record of working closely with product and design to iterate on and refine requirements, with the ability to break down initiative-level work and contribute to roadmap prioritization.
- A growth mindset and real curiosity. You seek out feedback and act on it, stay open to being wrong, and treat experience as a foundation for learning more rather than a reason to stop.
- Comfort with or curiosity about AI coding assistants (such as Claude Code) as productivity tools in an engineering workflow.
- An inclusive, generous working style: you like to mentor, collaborate, and elevate your team by supporting peers, offering coaching and guidance, and anticipating where your help would matter.
- Core toolkit: working familiarity with Ruby and TypeScript. Even light hands-on experience is fine. We care more about how you reason about problems than how many years you've shipped in a given language.
- You'll also work across Ruby on Rails, React, PostgreSQL, GraphQL, Git/GitHub, and Docker. Prior experience with any of these is welcome, but we're glad to support a strong engineer in ramping up on the ones they haven't used.
WORK & BENEFITS SNAPSHOT
This posting is for a full-time, remote, salaried position. Travel may be required on a limited basis to attend all-staff and departmental retreats (1-2 times per year). Additional travel may be required for select positions.
Registered States*: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C.
*While ActBlue is currently registered to support remote work in the states listed above, we possess the ability to register in additional states as needed. If you are located in a state not listed, we may still be able to proceed with your application, but please note that the offer process may take longer to accommodate registration requirements.
Work Schedule: This role requires availability during established, regular business hours (Mon-Fri).
Work Environment: Employees can expect to work with distributed teams across all U.S. time zones. Our roles require extended technology usage, and proficiency with virtual communication tools such as Zoom and Slack. Regular attendance in virtual meetings is inherent to every position.
Salary Range Details: $173,676 - $192,209 - $210,741
ActBlue is committed to consistent compensation practices across our organization. Final salary offers will take into account factors such as candidate experience, interview performance and current team salary parity.
Benefits:
- Flexible work schedules and an unlimited time-off policy
- Fully paid and trans-inclusive health, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their families; plus fully-paid health reimbursement arrangement to use for out of pocket expenses and fully-paid short- and long-term disability
- Fully paid basic and AD&D life insurance and a voluntary supplemental life insurance option
- Dependent and health care flexible spending account options
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP) benefits for employees
- Automatic 2% Employer-paid 401K contribution, plus up to an additional 6% match on employee contributions
- A minimum of three months paid medical, family and parental leave (for all new parents, adoptions included)
- Commuter or home-office benefits, including a $1,000 home-office setup allowance for all new full-time remote employees
- Additional perks including quarterly snack deliveries and digital subscriptions to the Boston Globe & New York Times
ActBlue is unable to sponsor work visas at this time.
UNION INFORMATION: The terms and conditions of this position are subject to a collective bargaining agreement with the Communications Workers of America, the exclusive bargaining agent of covered ActBlue Technical Services employees.
BACKGROUND CHECKS: As part of our hiring process, ActBlue will conduct a background check at the time of offer. This will be completed in compliance with applicable laws and will not be initiated without your consent.
INCLUSION STATEMENT FROM ACTBLUE
ActBlue is committed to equal employment opportunities and fostering a diverse, inclusive workplace. We celebrate unique perspectives, honor the dignity of all individuals, and recognize that diverse backgrounds and identities strengthen our mission.
If you’re passionate about our work and see yourself in this role, we encourage you to apply—even if you don’t meet every requirement.
We also provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities throughout the hiring process and employment. To request an accommodation, email recruitment@actblue.com.
*ActBlue will never ask candidates to buy equipment, nor will we email from anything other than an actblue.com or actbluetech.com email address.