Civic Tech Builder (Software Developer)

About FiNC (Future is Now Coalition)

We're upgrading how America chooses its leaders. Right now, big money and party gatekeepers control who's "electable" before you ever see a ballot. Good candidates exist everywhere: teachers, veterans, small business owners, community leaders who genuinely want to represent you. But the system is designed to keep them invisible. FiNC is building the bridge between citizens and the candidates they never get to see. Think of us as a matchmaker for democracy: we learn what citizens care about, we surface candidates who are committed to representing real people, and we give both sides a space to connect directly, without gatekeepers deciding who you get to choose from.

Phase 1 is happening now. The Digital Politics Hub is live, with candidate profiles, a Civic Tags system that lets candidates define themselves beyond party labels, citizen priority surveys, and a growing Candidate Discovery directory. We're piloting in Nevada and expanding nationwide toward the November 2026 general election.

Phase 2 is the endgame: Digital Democracy. A citizen-owned system with Politician Report Cards, candidate matchmaking tools, and a level playing field where the best leaders rise, not just the best-funded ones.

This is how we take democracy back: by building new infrastructure where better choices are actually possible.

Our structure matters. FiNC is building something akin to a cooperative-style nonprofit where team members aren't just employees; they're partners and co-architects in a mission to rebuild democracy. If you're ready to help design the civic infrastructure America never got, and to build with citizens, not gatekeepers, we invite you to step in.

What You'd Actually Be Building

The Digital Politics Hub is live and growing. Candidates in Nevada are claiming profiles, citizens are browsing and filtering through Candidate Discovery, and our Civic Tags system is giving candidates a way to define themselves beyond party labels. You're not starting from scratch; you're building on top of a working system.

Your work will include:

• Candidate Portal improvements: The public directory where candidates create profiles and citizens browse, filter, and compare them is built on Softr + Airtable. You'll improve the experience, add features, and solve problems as they come up.
• Civic Tags system: Our three-layer tagging system (Political Lens, About Me, and Advocacy tags) is live and central to how citizens navigate candidates. You'll help refine how tags display, how citizens interact with them, and how the data flows.
• Citizen Priority System: Surveys and polls that capture what citizens care about, with aggregated dashboards candidates can actually use.
• District Lookup Integration: Connecting the Google Civic Information and FEC APIs so citizens can find candidates in their specific district.
• Hub Improvements: Ongoing iteration based on citizen feedback, candidate needs, and team priorities. This is the core of the role: I bring back feature needs from real conversations with candidates, campaign consultants, and movements every week. You help figure out how to build them.

Down the road, you'd help scope and build early features of Digital Democracy: Politician Report Cards, the Candidate Matchmaker, and the tools that make the full vision real.

Who Thrives in This Role

This is where we need to be honest with you. We've worked with developers before. The pattern that doesn't work here: someone who sees the tech as the mission. At FiNC, the tech is important, but it serves the human side. Our energy goes into outreach, relationships, trust-building, and earning citizen buy-in. The tech makes that work scalable.

You'll thrive here if you:

• Get energized by why something is being built, not just how.
• Can sit in a conversation about what a frustrated voter needs, and walk away thinking about features.
• Are comfortable with "good enough for now, we'll improve it" instead of "let me architect the perfect system first".
• Work well with non-technical teammates and translate between their ideas and what's buildable.
• Have opinions about user experience that come from empathy, not just design patterns.
• Are socially engaged (we don't need an extrovert, but we need someone who genuinely connects with people and cares about how they experience things).

You'll struggle here if you:

• Default to "the tech should drive the strategy".
• Need a detailed spec before you can start building.
• Find it frustrating to work with people who don't speak your technical language.
• See civic tech as a resume line rather than something you'd do even if nobody was watching.

What You Need to Know

Must-haves:

• Solid experience with Airtable or similar database systems (formulas, automations, relational tables, interfaces).
• Ability to build functional pages and user flows in Softr or a similar no-code platform.
• Comfort using AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, or similar) to write and debug code when no-code hits its limits.
• Enough coding literacy to read, modify, and troubleshoot JavaScript, APIs, and embeds.
• Experience working with APIs (specifically: you'll be integrating the Google Civic Information API early on).

Nice-to-haves:

• Familiarity with WordPress (our main site runs on WordPress + Cloudways).
• Any background in civic tech, nonprofit tech, or mission-driven organizations.
• Design sense; you don't need to be a designer, but caring about how things look and feel matters here.

Key skills/competency

• Civic Tech Software Developer
• Airtable
• Softr
• JavaScript
• API Integration
• No-code Platforms
• AI Coding Tools
• User Experience
• Mission-Driven Organizations
• Nonprofit Tech