The Scratch Foundation is a proud sponsor of /dev/color In Motion 2021 and we're invested in changing tech for good, with exceptional Black talent. We look forward to connecting with you at our virtual booth and we hope you'll apply to this job posting to be considered for any of the five engineering positions listed below. 

About Scratch

Scratch is a creative programming language and online community for children and teens. ScratchJr is a stand-alone app for younger children. Children around the world use Scratch and ScratchJr editors to create their own interactive games, stories, and animations -- share their creations with one another. In the process, they learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. Last year, more than 30+ million children and teens around the world created projects with Scratch. 

In 2019, we moved our team out of the MIT Media Lab after 15 years, and into the Scratch Foundation, a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit.  We’re transitioning out of an academic environment and into an independent nonprofit organization at a moment when children are being asked to learn and socialize online. As an organization, we’re focused on centering marginalized children, investing in our online community, developing our team, scaling our infrastructure, and improving data privacy, interoperability, and In-school experience.

We’re looking for a diverse pool of applicants, including those from historically marginalized backgrounds, to join our team of 50 educators, designers, and engineers, and help us steward our community through this work.

Each day, a small team of technologists at Scratch set out to positively impact the lives of millions of kids in a global online community of “Scratchers'' who are passionate about creative computing and collaboration. 

At this exciting stage in our growth, the Scratch team is hiring for five engineering roles at mutiple levels (Associate to Senior Engineer) including: 

• Manager Software Engineer
• Front End Engineers 
• Backend Engineers
• Full Stack Engineers
• Android & iOS Engineers
• Site Reliability Engineers
• DevOps Engineers
• Project Manager
• UX/Product Designer

These role will allow you to collaboratively explore creative solutions to a variety of challenges as we build high scale and highly availability distributed solutions to support our growing community. We have a modern technology stack but we're as interested in your ability to improve user experiences and build scalable appellations vs. your knowledge of any specific programming languages or frameworks.

Our Technology Environment

• Languages & Frameworks: React/NodeJS, Redux, Restify, Python/Django
• Datastores: MySQL, Aurora, Redis
• Other Technologies: AWS, Fastly, CircleCI, Elasticsearch

You Will

• Become intimately familiar with our technologies - how they operate, communicate and perform, how they can be improved and best supported. 
• Continuously contribute to the improvement and design of the Engineering team processes for collaboration and iteration
• Collaborate with the Engineering, Product, Design and Community teams on creating and improving the pathways for an online community of young learners to create and share digital projects for self expression
• Consider the feedback from our community for smaller scale improvements to the Scratch website for a more welcoming experience for educators, parents, or funders.

You Have

• An eye for user-friendly interfaces and the ability to translate product designs into clear, understandable, and well-documented code for user-facing applications. 
• Experience implementing, optimizing, and debugging software that touches users including the fundamentals of data structures, algorithms, and APIs.
• An understanding of either/or frontend and backend technologies and how they interact, not necessarily an expert in our specific stacks. 
• An interest and ability to be continuously learning, willing to dive into new codebases, programming languages and environments.
• Unit/integration testing experience.

You Are

• Someone who builds relationships across all functions and levels, who focuses on team wins, and makes work fun. 
• A champion of diversity, who values the lived experiences and perspectives of others, especially when they're different from your own. 
• Passionate about the potential that technology can offer to positively impact the ways in which people can explore, create, learn, and connect with one another.
• Comfortable in fast-moving environments, knowing there will be risk and ambiguity, but driving toward mutual agreement, understanding and clarity. 

The Scratch Foundation is an equal opportunity employer. Scratch welcomes people of all ages, races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, sexual orientations, and gender identities. We especially encourage historically marginalized identities to apply.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.