Full Stack Engineer at American Forests

Job Description

Trees play a vital role in solving some of the most pressing issues facing our communities, our society, and our world today. For 150 years, American Forests has stood boldly at the forefront of the conservation movement, working collaboratively and innovatively to ensure that all people have access to the benefits of trees. As we look ahead to the next 150, continued collective action will be essential to securing a healthy, climate-resilient future for all.

To support this work, we are looking for a mid-level Full Stack Engineer to join our GIS & Data Science team, building impactful tools focused on reforestation and equitable access to trees and the benefits they provide.

What You’ll Do

As a part of the team, you will build cloud-native applications that feature interactive user interfaces, analytical capabilities, and geospatial components. You’ll contribute to both backend systems and user-facing features, applying technical expertise with attention to user needs and implementation details.

You will work in a supportive environment with access to mentoring and guidance. We encourage independent thinking, questions, and learning from experience as you develop your skills and contribute to our projects.

Major Responsibilities Will Include

Design, develop, and test individual web services, APIs, and application components
Build user interfaces using React, Mapbox, and other open source libraries
Contribute to lightweight data processing workflows for ETL operations and event-driven transformations
Contribute to specifications and architectural decisions
Help address scaling, performance, and usability challenges through established best practices and thoughtful problem-solving
Write maintainable, reusable code with comprehensive pull requests, tests, and documentation
Work with cloud-optimized data formats including Parquet, FlatGeobuf, and PMTiles

What We’re Looking For

3+ years of full-stack software engineering experience, building production applications
2+ years of experience with JavaScript, NodeJS, and React (similar component-based frameworks considered)
Proficiency implementing APIs using RPC, REST or similar
Experience with containerization and deploying backend services directly to a cloud provider or using a third-party PaaS provider (we use AWS, Flightcontrol).
Familiarity with relational databases, ORMs, and schema design (we use PostgreSQL and Prisma)
Proficiency with Git, build tools, and testing. Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines
Experience with Linux/Unix command line tools for deployment, debugging and system management
Understanding of common security vulnerabilities and mitigation strategies
Experience working with remote teams

Nice to Have

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education, training, and experience
Typescript experience or a strong willingness to learn
An interest in using other languages when projects require it (e.g. Python)
Experience with geospatial tools and libraries.
Experience working on data pipelines that ingest, process or publish data at larger scale (tens to hundreds of GB).
Experience with observability tools (Honeycomb, Sentry or other)
Comfortable using AI tools in your development workflow

Our Core Competencies

Attitude

Communication
Organization
Problem-Solving & Creativity
Representing the Organization

Reporting and Supervision

The Full Stack Engineer will report to the Senior Software & Data Engineer and will work closely with program teams. The Full Stack Engineer does not have any direct reports at this time.

Compensation, Benefits & Working Conditions

This is a full-time, salaried exempt position. The budget salary range is between $80,000 and $110,000 annually.
This is a fully remote position based in the U.S. Up to 5% of travel throughout the U.S. and/or to American Forests’ headquarters in Washington D.C. may be required.
The individual must be comfortable with prolonged periods of sitting and/or standing at a desk and working on a computer. Reasonable accommodation may be made to provide access to all individuals along the continuum of human ability and experience.
Our benefits package includes:

Health and Wellness

Work-Life Balance

Financial and Retirement

Medical, Dental, and Vision
Vacation and Sick Leave
401(k) 6% Match
Employee Assistance Program
Paid Holidays
Flexible Spending Accounts
Disability Insurance
Parental Bonding Leave
Cell Phone Reimbursement
Life and AD&D Insurance
Bereavement Leave
Pet Benefits
Military Leave

Interview Process

Application Review
Screening Interview: A short conversation to review motivations, experience, and basic qualifications.
Introductory Interview: A low-pressure conversation with team leadership to discuss experience and aspirations, learn about the role and team culture, and ask questions.
Technical Interview: Connect with a senior engineer for a live system design and coding session to evaluate your technical skills and approach to real-world challenges.
Panel Interview: Meet with several team members to discuss collaboration style and problem-solving approach through behavioral questions and examples and to ask any final questions.

If this role sounds exciting, but you’re not sure if you check every box, we encourage you to apply.

We’re interested in your ability to learn, collaborate, and bring fresh perspectives.

About Us

American Forests is a national non-profit organization committed to creating healthy and resilient forests from cities to large forest landscapes, 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 over 150 years.

American Forests is proud to be a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible 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.

American Forests is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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 accommodation may be made to provide access to all individuals along the continuum of human ability and experience.

Minority/Female/Disabled/Veteran/LGBTQ+ Encouraged to Apply

In accordance with federal law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) civil rights regulations and policies, this institution is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, and reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means of communication for program information (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language, etc.) should contact the responsible State or local Agency that administers the program or USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TTY) or contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339. Additionally, program information is also available in languages other than English.

Benefits found in job post

Disability insurance