ABOUT US

American Forests is a national non-profit organization committed to creating healthy and resilient forests from cities to wilderness, that deliver essential benefits for climate, people, water, and wildlife. We advance our mission through forestry innovation, place-based partnerships to plant and restore forests, and movement building. We envision a world in which the significant environmental, societal, and economic benefits of forests are fully realized and equitably available to all people. Established in 1875, American Forests is the oldest national non-profit conservation organization in the U.S. working to restoring urban forests and forested landscapes for nearly 150 years.
American Forests is proud to be a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible (DEIA) workplace. These are our shared values. We welcome individuals who bring a variety of backgrounds and experiences to be a part of our team to help make a difference individually and collectively as we work toward achieving our mission. We are committed to fostering an environment that is welcoming and respectful and provides opportunities for advancement and professional growth for every team member.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Senior Software & Data Engineer is a member of American Forests (AF) GIS & Data Science team, reporting to the Senior Director, Data Design & UX. The Senior Engineer ensures the continued function and optimization of all mission-critical custom software products at American Forests. They are responsible for developing and maintaining complex software systems that can sustainably and flexibly support new deployments and scale-up to support new large-scale datasets. The Senior Engineer will lead the implementation of major product features and assume responsibility for the quality and delivery of the code. The ideal candidate will have expertise in building, testing, and deploying systems; leading software development and feature implementation; designing and improving architecture, databases, and data pipelines; and in geographic information systems and object-oriented programming.
The Senior Engineer works deeply with a team of developers, data analysts and designers to deliver sophisticated and sustainable data products that elevate American Forests’ visibility and reputation as a leader forestry science. They provide technical leadership and drive engineering best practices, standards, and solutions. This role functions at the leading edge of innovation at American Forests, providing vision for technical solutions that position our products not only in front of our field, but level with contemporary private sector software products.

QUALIFICATIONS

While we do not expect any one candidate to possess all of these qualifications, the ideal candidate will possess many of the following professional and personal skills and qualities:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent degree or training required. Master’s degree desired. Additional experience accepted in lieu of.
• At least 5 years of professional software development experience.
• Experience with our tech stack:
• Languages, frameworks, and libraries: React, Blitz.js, TypeScript, Python, Node, Mapbox GL JS
• Cloud infrastructure: AWS, Terraform, and Docker
• Testing: Proficiency in automated testing techniques
• Experience building and deploying full stack React applications
• Experience building ETL pipelines in cloud environments
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools, particularly Terraform, for managing and provisioning cloud infrastructure
• Experience with designing, building, and maintaining CI/CD pipelines to automate deployment processes and ensure efficient delivery of applications
• Experience with mapping libraries and frameworks (e.g., Mapbox, MapLibre) for building interactive geospatial applications preferred
• Experience with Python for geospatial data analysis and data visualization techniques and libraries (e.g., D3.js) preferred
• Critical thinking, creative problem-solving skills and demonstrated capacity to spark innovation within an organization and its approach to achieving its goals.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

The individual must be comfortable with prolonged periods of sitting and/or standing at a desk and working on a computer. Reasonable accommodations may be made to provide access to all individuals along the continuum of human ability and experience.

SUPERVISORY REQUIREMENTS

This position does not have any supervisory requirements.
American Forests is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or other characteristics protected by law.
Reasonable accommodations may be made to provide access to all individuals along the continuum of human ability and experience.

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES

Responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

TECHNICAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Implement user-facing features in React and Blitz.js for Tree Equity Score products and our growing suite of custom applications at American Forests.
• Maintain our existing systems and applications, including reducing technical debt, fixing bugs, adding automated testing, and monitoring cloud infrastructure.
• Research, build, test and deploy upgrades to all parts of our tech stack to improve automation, data validation, monitoring and application performance.
• Manage existing AWS infrastructure using Terraform and FlightControl.
• Take responsibility for ensuring American Forests technical products meet performance goals, project goals and user needs.
• Interpret, provide constructive feedback on, and accurately implement design specifications to achieve user-focused outcomes