Our Mission at Avaaz

Avaaz is one of the world’s largest online global campaigning movements. We enable 70 million members worldwide to channel their voices into a powerful collective force for change on pressing global challenges. We are deeply mission-focused and funded exclusively by members to maintain our independence. We’ve achieved a broad range of victories over the last 15 years that you can read about here.

Join Our Digital Transformation at Avaaz

Avaaz is at the forefront of a bold Digital Transformation Project aimed at amplifying our global impact. This initiative goes beyond technology—it’s about reimagining how we engage with members, optimize revenue, and develop new strategies to empower millions to drive change.

VP of Engineering Position Overview

Central to this transformation is the VP of Engineering role, which will be pivotal in partnering with our Product team to drive technological excellence across Avaaz. This position is critical to the daily operations of our technology landscape, overseeing software development, tech operations, security, data, and platform support. By leading these key areas, the VP of Engineering will ensure that Avaaz's digital infrastructure is robust, secure, and scalable, enabling us to deliver on our goal to be the world’s most impactful campaigning community. This role will report to the Executive. 

Please note: While this role is being advertised as VP of Engineering to align with industry standards and reflect the experience level and salary, the internal title will be "Head of Technology" to reflect Avaaz's internal norms and naming conventions.

Why You'll Love This Role

• Impactful Work: Your efforts will directly contribute to creating positive social change on a global scale.
• Collaborative Environment: Work with a diverse, mission-driven team that values collaboration, creativity, and innovation.
• Leadership Opportunity: Lead and inspire a team of skilled engineers, driving technological excellence across the organization.

Key Responsibilities 

• Lead the Engineering Team to deliver a modern digital platform comprised of in-depth analytics, robust A/B testing, and a fast, performant website and tech stack
• Review, establish, and optimize the engineering team processes and workflows to enhance delivery and efficiency
• Hiring, training, mentoring staff, and owning the professional development of the team
• Identify new technological solutions that would better serve the organization and replace the in-house apps with off-the-shelf software
• Monitor the Tech budget and expenditures, ensuring cost-effective use of resources
• Oversee the management of relationships with vendors, service providers, and technology partners to ensure the effective delivery of IT services and support. Evaluate vendor performance, oversee contract negotiations, and manage service level agreements to optimize value and mitigate risks
• Ensure that Avaaz systems and applications are consistently operational, efficient, and secure.
• Supervise IT infrastructure for functionality, efficiency, and security.

Qualifications 

Passion, experience, and the right mindset are the keys to success in this role. If you’re excited about using technology to create social change, we want to hear from you—even if you don’t meet every qualification.

• Passion and commitment to global justice, citizen empowerment, and positive social change and impact
• Extensive experience working in comparable technical leadership positions (e.g., VP of Engineering, Senior Director of Engineering, etc.)
• Thoroughly familiar with systems architecture, full-stack Web development, system security and data analytics
• Broad experience in managing, monitoring and securing complex systems, infrastructure and applications
• Strong leadership skills, comfortable in a highly collaborative team culture and a hierarchical team structure
• High professionalism, self-motivation, efficiency, and results-oriented delivery on a short timeline
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Experience overseeing and managing engineering budgets effectively
• Concrete understanding of web security, privacy, data protection, and regulatory compliance

Nice to have

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field; advanced degrees (MBA or relevant graduate degree) are a plus.

Location

Avaaz is a virtual organization; most of our work is done online. Our staff are based all over the world. For this position, the candidate would ideally be based in the EMEA or Americas time zones, although other locations may be considered.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary varies with location and experience and is highly competitive with leading international nongovernmental organizations. The full-package salary for this position ranges from $114,583 - 182,140 USD. Candidates will be provided with an accurate range in local currency.

The development of our employees is paramount. To support this, we include these benefits:

• 5 weeks paid vacation per year
• 10 paid holidays per year
• 3,000 USD for training and development per year
• 1,500 USD for language development per year
• Out-of-Home Workspace Rental

Application Timeline

We are reviewing applications on a rolling basis and encourage all candidates to submit applications as soon as possible. 

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion 

As a global organization with millions of members worldwide, it’s important to us that our team reflects the diversity needed to lead a movement of people from across the planet, rising to meet some of the most complex challenges humanity has ever faced. We believe we can only succeed by building a diverse team full of fresh perspectives and original ideas, and we are committed to creating a working environment in which everyone has an equal opportunity to fulfill their potential.

Our team includes speakers of English as their first or second language, self-taught and university-educated, and people with all sorts of professional backgrounds. If doing the job you just read about would excite you to come to work every day, we want you to apply if you’re talented, hard-working, and committed to making a difference. We do not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, color, ancestry, language and accent, national origin, citizenship, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, family/parental or marital status, political affiliation, religion, socioeconomic class/caste, or disability. 

We’ll provide reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants with disabilities or special needs to participate in the application process, so please let us know if you have such a request when you apply.

Please do not send your application via email. Only applications received via the form online will be considered. Thank you!