Temporary Senior Engineer
The Berkman Klein Center seeks a full-time, term-limited Senior Engineer through December, 2026 to continue building out a groundbreaking online video-based discourse platform designed to facilitate constructive dialogue and collaborative decision-making across diverse groups. The Senior Engineer will help prepare for our Frankly project (frankly.org) for its next phase including a potential spin-off as an independent organization. The role reports to Frankly’s Senior Program Manager and will operate within a team of engineers, designers, product managers, and leadership to design, build, and test platform functionality as we activate beta instances with multiple external institutions.
In concert with staff including other engineers, designers, product managers, and leadership, the engineer will ensure that the new technology satisfies traditional engineering goals like scalability and robustness while meeting goals that center responsible technology principles (e.g., giving users more control over their data, or strengthening a user's ability to defend against online harassment).
Apply here.
Job-Specific Responsibilities:
As a Senior Engineer you will:
- Make major contributions to Frankly across the entire technology stack, with wide latitude in finding solutions
- Collaborate closely with product management, user experience designers, and fellow engineers on a close-knit, scrappy, distributed team
- Engage with external stakeholders, such as our partner organizations
- Collaborate with others to identify technical areas of cross-pollination
- Engage with the larger Berkman Klein Center communities (e.g., by attending workshops and seminars) to learn from the Center’s dynamic intellectual environment and share individual and team learnings.
Basic Qualifications:
Minimum of five years’ post-secondary education or relevant work experience.
Additional Qualifications:
We are looking for people who have:
- Expert-level Flutter development with a strong track record of building highly interactive UI
- Strong experience architecting and scaling backends at an enterprise level
- Strong experience with cross-platform audio/video streaming
- Experience leading or contributing significantly to large-scale codebase refactors
- DevOps experience, including managing a transition from a monorepo to a multi-repo structure
- Experience building software for a product with 1M+ monthly active users.
- Open source contribution experience
- Experience integrating AI capabilities into enterprise-grade workflows
- Experience working on a small, high-ownership team
Working Conditions:
This position may be performed in-person or remotely from Massachusetts or another of the states in which Harvard can register employees.
Additional Information:
This is a term appointment expected to extend through December 31, 2026, subject to departmental funding and need. This role will offer competitive compensation based in part on skills and experience. No benefits are included with this position.