Full Job DescriptionJob Information
Industry
IT Services
Work Experience
2 years +
Salary
₹10L – ₹13L per annum
Remote Job
About us
We are a research lab working on the intersection use data, tech, design and social science to strengthen the course of civic engagements in India.
We work to harness the potential of open knowledge movements and better enable citizens to engage in matters of public reform.
We aim to grow data and tech literacy of governments, non-profits, think-tanks, media houses, universities, and more to enable data-driven decision making at scale.
Job Description
This is a remote position.
Who We Are?
We at CivicDataLab work with the goal to use data, tech, design, and social science to strengthen the course of civic engagement in India. We work to harness the potential of the open-source movement to enable citizens to engage better with public reforms. Our work is centered around building data strategy, data platforms, and data science applications to push data-driven decision-making at scale. Moreover, we work closely with governments, non-profits, think tanks, media houses, universities, etc. to build their data and tech capacity.
We’re hiring a Frontend Engineer who specializes in building User Interfaces for data platforms. They will work alongside data strategists, public policy researchers, and other stakeholders to develop platforms that help citizens participate and engage in discussions and assist policy-makers and researchers in working with public datasets.
What Are We Looking For
As a team, we’re moderately federated and our work is defined by the sectors we operate in. Public Finance, Law & Justice and Urban Local governance are a few sectors where we’re actively engaging with our collaborators. The outputs, outcomes, and future opportunities are always as per the needs, requirements, partnerships, and opportunities available at a sector level.
This structure also helps us find, share and validate our ideas across sectors. A good example here is the Open Budgets India platform, which we created to curate all-important public finance data in one place. Our learnings here helped us in creating the Justice Hub, which is a collaborative open data platform for curating legal datasets.
As a Frontend Engineer
You will collaborate with an interdisciplinary team to ideate and develop similar platforms across projects and sectors.
Work with our partners and build systems to express their findings for better advocacy purposes.
Create more open tools for the community that simplifies the workflows on dealing with open & public datasets.
Our most recent work
Developing social media-centric crowdsourced disaster management platform PetaBencana
We are currently re-building a city-level open data platform OpenCity to enable more data-led conversations in cities.
Developing a case-law tracker with Internet Freedom Foundation to track cases registered under the now unconstitutional section 66A of the Information Technology Act. Link
Tracking the implementation of the POCSO act by studying the case laws from three different states. Link
Building the Justice Hub – To enable communities to discover, share, create and harness open data on justice. Link
Creating an OSS-Landscape report chronicling the journey of the Open Source Movement in India and developing a strategic roadmap for its adoption in India.
We are co-creating the Open Budgets India Initiative, to make India’s public budget and spending data more open, usable, and easy to comprehend. It has some key open-source data analytics tools like Union Budget Explorer, Assam Budget Explorer, Schemes Dashboard and more.
Why work with us
We help you not just define your ‘impact’ but also work with you towards finding a path to learn, realise and quantify its effect on our ecosystem.
Our past work and experience of working with communities and civic tech, in general, has connected us as a branch to a network of civil society actors and organisations. You’ll have the opportunity to leverage this network, to work on pressing, yet thought provoking issues, in sectors like Judiciary, Finance, Economics and Languages.
We also feel that this is our biggest strength, what we can offer you is not a feature to work on but a passage to an infinite long road of people, problems, ideas and opportunities that may help you find your place amidst the chaos.
How we work
At CivicDataLab, people work from their individual locations, being proactive at communication is the key. We use open source tools and agile methodologies in organising our work. We meet once every quarter at some part of the country to reconvene, learn from each other and help the organisation grow.
Requirements
Our expectations
Good command of Javascript – We have used several systems in the past to build UIs. But one thing that was common in most of our projects was Javascript. Experience with working on multiple frameworks is a plus, but what is essential and important is a good understanding of plain vanilla Javascript.
More than 2 years of experience and very good command of React, Vanilla JS, ES6, HTML5, data visualization libraries like D3, ECharts, Chart.js.
A curiosity and appetite to learn and explore new and upcoming technologies.
Willingness to work on building Open Data Publishing platforms that host datasets, documents, reports, and provide rich end user experience.
Experience working with REST APIs.
Excellent understanding of Mobile Responsiveness, Cross Browser Compatibility, and Accessibility.
Taking ownership of your ideas and work – We’re a small & remote team. As a member of CDL, you’ll have multiple opportunities to sign up for different projects (both internal and external) and wear multiple hats. We encourage you to work on issues that you associate with and help as a team to solve them. The most valuable skill you bring to this role is how you deal with these opportunities. We don’t follow a hierarchical structure and acting responsibly in whatever you sign up, is not only essential, it also helps the team move forward.
Good to have
Working experience with Node.js, Next.js, Sass, GraphQL, Storybook.
Experience working on distributed frontend systems.
Work experience with AWS, Version control, etc.
Understanding of caching and queuing mechanisms.
Understanding of handling and manipulating diverse datasets.
Benefits
CivicDataLab operates as a small team with most people working remotely. You will get opportunities to use your frontend skills and collaborate with researchers and social science practitioners in bringing qualitative and quantitative change in various key sectors, along with an opportunity to shape the organization’s work culture. You will be responsible for defining your own goals in accordance with partner organizations and other team members and plan your own career trajectory. We are committed to inclusive work culture and strongly encourage applicants from diverse and cross-cultural backgrounds.
Perks of working with Us
Home Office & Wellness Allowance
If you’re interested in taking classes that enhance your overall physical or mental well-being you have INR 60,000 as an annual stipend to do so. For some people that might mean a monthly massage. Some take photography lessons or learn a musical instrument or buy a gym membership. It’s up to you; the point is to get something that you feel enriches you as a person.
Professional Growth and development Allowance
At CivicDataLab, we encourage everyone to take up things that help one grow professionally, and you get an annual kitty of INR 60,000 to do so. This includes attending or speaking at conferences, taking courses, acquiring software licences or even joining summer schools. We feel that learning a skill should never be a hurdle to solve important problems for the community.
Coworking Space Stipend
CivicDataLab encourages usage of coworking spaces. Please make sure you’re using a true coworking space that’s meant solely for working, not a club or social space.