Software Engineer, Product
Software Engineering, Product · Full-time
San Francisco, CA, USA · Los Angeles, CA, USA · New York, NY, USA
USD 130k-150k / year
Posted on Oct 28, 2026
Software Engineer, Product
San Francisco • New York • Los Angeles
Product & Engineering
6 days ago
Remote
Full-time
About Collective Intelligence Project
The Collective Intelligence Project is a nonprofit R&D lab whose mission is to enable scalable, global democratic input into AI. Over the past four years, we've turned that mission into working systems that make collective human judgment legible, scalable, and connected to how AI gets developed and governed.
We ran some of the world's first democratic input processes into AI models with Anthropic and OpenAI, and worked on public infrastructure for AI with Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs and the UK AI Security Institute. We set the foundations for addressing AI's impacts on our core democratic functions. Through Global Dialogues, we've brought people from more than 70 countries into structured deliberation about how AI should develop, producing findings that labs and policymakers use. With Weval, we've built a platform that lets communities and domain experts evaluate AI models against what actually matters to them.
We're a small, ambitious team that has received funding from leading foundations such as Omidyar, Google.org, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Survival and Flourishing Fund, and Ford Foundation. We work with top AI labs, governments, and civil society to ensure AI development expands democratic capacity rather than undermining it.
About This Role
We’re looking for a software engineer who can help turn open questions about AI into software people actually use, turning ideas from our research explorations into real products that showcase the value of collective intelligence. You'll work closely with research, product, and engineering to take ideas from a prototype to production, building intuitive experiences, research tools, and practical AI applications. You'll own well-defined projects end to end with room to experiment alongside experienced teammates will help you grow and scale your most promising outputs into something people can truly rely on.
Our current products include:
- Weval Studio: our product platform for gathering structured public input on AI through deliberation, with tools for researchers to turn what people say into evaluations AI labs and civil society can act on.
- Global Dialogues: recurring global surveys exploring how people around the world, including experts, think about AI, bringing their perspectives into public debate and decisions about AI's future.
Responsibilities
- Collaborate with senior engineers and researchers to scope product ideas and research questions, then take ownership of well-defined prototypes, MVPs, and full-stack features through design, implementation, and deployment, with support through technical reviews and iteration.
- Build responsive, accessible interfaces that make key user journeys clear, incorporating feedback from Product, Research, and users.
- Develop tools that support research workflows, including data collection, experimentation, evaluation, and analysis.
- Rapidly prototype new product initiatives inspired by research and partner needs, shipping early and often, incorporating learnings into the product development process.
- Integrate language models and AI APIs into product features, test outputs against requirements, and identify failure modes.
- Participate in technical design discussions and code reviews, clearly explaining implementation options and trade-offs.
- Investigate bugs and use feedback to improve functionality, reliability, and performance.
Signs You’ll Be A Great Fit
- Understand the risks posed by AI as well as the benefits; can reason about how to build responsibly, with agility, while maximizing the opportunity for public benefit.
- Curious about how product needs and research questions translate into working software, and eager to experiment with different approaches.
- Enjoys building functional prototypes and MVPs that communicate core user journeys, incorporating feedback from product, research, and users to improve the experience.
- Takes ownership of testing their work, documenting findings, and communicating what they've learned with product, research, and engineering colleagues.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in a technical field or equivalent practical experience.
- 2+ years of professional software engineering experience, including translating product requirements into technical solutions and shipping features end-to-end.
- Experience building full-stack applications using TypeScript, React, or Node.js, with exposure to additional back-end languages such as Python, Go, or C++.
- Experience with applications on cloud platforms such as Google Cloud Platform or AWS.
- Experience collaborating across engineering, product, design, or research to define requirements, communicate technical trade-offs, and deliver features.
- Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Gemini to implement, debug, or test code, including validating generated outputs.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience building AI-enabled applications using LLM APIs, structured outputs, or prompt engineering.
- Experience with scripting, data processing, automation, or analysis.
- Experience building prototypes or user-facing interfaces that demonstrate core user journeys and incorporate usability feedback.
- Experience developing software that supports research workflows, including surveys, data collection, experimentation, or evaluation.
Nice-to-Haves
- Experience working in startups, non-profit, AI safety, frontier AI labs, or mission-driven organizations.
- Familiarity with open-source technologies and community-driven development models.
- Interested in writing technical papers, blog posts, or other public-facing content.
- Experience working in the space of tech governance, AI safety, civic tech/digital democracy, or anything “sociotechnical”
- Interested in how the public is impacted and is curious about where democracy and collective intelligence can lead to great outcomes.
Compensation
The base pay range for this role is $130,000 – $150,000 per year.
Benefits
- Health coverage: medical, dental, and vision insurance.
- Tax-advantaged accounts: Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options.
- Retirement: 403(b) plan with a 100% employer match on the first 4% of salary.
- Time and flexibility: generous PTO and flexible hours. We judge output over presence, with real accommodation for appointments, errands, sick days, and time off.
Before You Apply
- Apply even if you don't match every bullet. Job descriptions describe the ideal; people rarely are. If the role excites you and you can do much of it, we want to hear from you.
- Your written answers carry real weight. We weigh them alongside your resume and portfolio, not after them, and they decide who we talk to. Be specific about what you have done and why this work interests you. A short, direct answer beats a polished generic one. We read every application.
- Work authorization: we are not able to sponsor visas at this time. Applicants must be authorized to work in the country they'll be employed in.
- Location: We’d love for you to be based in New York City or San Francisco, where our team gathers in person. We’re open to remote candidates for the right person, as long as you can work U.S. hours.
Equal Opportunity
The Collective Intelligence Project is an equal opportunity employer. We make hiring decisions on the basis of qualifications, merit, and what the role needs, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. Our work depends on bringing many perspectives into how AI is built and governed, and we hold ourselves to the same standard in who we hire.
Accommodations
If you need an accommodation at any point in the application or interview process, including an alternative format for the application, extra time for an exercise, or a different interview setup, email hiring@cip.org and we'll arrange it. Requesting an accommodation has no effect on your candidacy.
Questions
Anything else about this role or about working at CIP: hiring@cip.org.
First name *
Last name *
Email *
Resume *
Click to upload or drag and drop here
LinkedIn URL
Cover letter
Click to upload or drag and drop here
How did you hear about this role? *
If a person or a community pointed you here, tell us who in the next question. It helps us thank them.
If a person, community, or post pointed you here, who or where?
Are you legally authorized to work in the United States? *
We ask every applicant this question; your answer is not shared with interviewers.
Will you now or in the future require visa sponsorship to work in the United States? *
CIP is not able to sponsor work visas at this time. We ask every applicant this question; your answer is not shared with interviewers.
Portfolio
Github, Website, Video, etc.
Why are you interested in this work, and who or what shaped that interest? Be specific to what we do at CIP. *
A person, a project, a piece of writing, an experience: one or two is plenty. Around 200 words.
Tell us about a project you've built that you're proud of and why. * *
What's the last thing you built or shipped using an AI tool? *
Req ID: R1