Senior Engineer

WHO WE ARE

Act Blue is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating cutting-edge technology that fuels Democratic victories and enables progressive causes to thrive.

Our vision is simple: building change through the power of people. Since our founding, we’ve been building innovative solutions to revolutionize grassroots fundraising – if you’ve donated to a Democratic campaign or a progressive organization online, you’ve probably used our platform! We believe in empowering small-dollar donors by helping thousands of groups — from local candidates to national movements — mobilize their communities and create a lasting impact.

Every member of our team is deeply committed to advancing our shared mission and core values. Together, we are shaping the future of democracy.

Act Blue Technical Services is seeking a Senior Software Engineer I to join our Payments team and help build the technology that powers Act Blue's significant daily transaction volume. The Payments Team's critical areas include payment processing, recurring contributions, fraud mitigation, and internal tools that help teams within Act Blue with their payment-related workflows.

Senior Software Engineer I works in concert with product teams, platform teams, ops teams, and the security team. As a member of the Payments team, you will provide technical leadership in architecting and scaling our payments infrastructure while contributing to our inclusive environment and fostering a culture that brings out the best in yourself and your colleagues.

• Architect, refactor, and enhance payments systems to ensure secure, scalable, and reliable feature delivery across the payment life cycle from initial authorization to payout.
• Provide technical leadership and vision in developing, testing, monitoring, and rolling out the next generation of our payments system.
• Guide the design and execution of high-impact technical solutions while balancing effort, scope, and trade-offs specific to payment processing challenges.
• Recommend system-level improvements to address security, scalability, and reliability concerns in our payments infrastructure.
• Act as a go-to consultant for guidance on payment-related system issues and complex transaction scenarios.
• Lead the execution of large projects involving multiple engineers, complex requirements, and high ambiguity.
• Break down initiative-level work into multiple epics and contribute technical expertise to team roadmap prioritization.
• Consistently debug the toughest issues throughout the stack, regardless of the environment, identifying root causes or viable workarounds.
• Design frameworks to foster a culture of defensive testing within Engineering, particularly around payment processing workflows.
• Collaboratively design and champion best practices and design patterns to improve platform maintainability.
• Demonstrate technical leadership through writing documentation, establishing effective monitoring, and fostering clear communication.
• Set the standard for software quality through maintainable code that adapts to future design and roadmap decisions.
• Coach and mentor other engineers, creating spaces where individuals feel engaged, valued, and heard.
• Engage with your manager as a thought partner on core work and personal development to increase your impact on the team and the organization.
• May support supplementary projects as assigned, ensuring timely and efficient completion in line with organizational objectives and standards.

• 3-5+ years or equivalent of professional experience working with teams and delivering projects.
• Significant experience with server-side web application development, preferably with Ruby on Rails.
• 3+ years or equivalent experience with developing payment systems (ie. Stripe, Paypal, Checkout, Sift)
• Experience leading the execution of large projects involving multiple engineers, complex requirements, and high ambiguity.
• A track record of effective collaboration with other engineers to develop abstractions and patterns that make it easy to build reliable software.
• An aptitude for reasoning about and troubleshooting complex systems.
• Proficiency in relational databases,…