Staff Product Engineer

Position Summary

Candid is a nonprofit that provides the most comprehensive data and insights about the social sector. We get you the information you need to do good. Candid currently has an opportunity for a Staff Product Engineer. We're looking for an engineer who's excited to build in service of that mission. You'll be the engineering foundation of a new, AI-native product team built on an empowered product-team model - a product manager, a designer, a data lead, and you. You will build and ship end-to-end, partner with the product manager and designer as an equal in shaping what we build and why, and set a visible, organization-wide example of what excellent, AI-accelerated engineering looks like. This is a high-agency, high-visibility individual-contributor role: rather than managing a team of engineers, you create leverage through modern AI tooling, strong technical judgment, and a mandate to demonstrate a better way of building and bring the wider engineering organization along with you. This is a multi-role position, requiring the mental capacity to understand the engineering side end to end, understand and drive to desired business outcomes, and influence others to follow the path you are trailblazing. If you are looking for a role with autonomy, maximum impact, and never a dull moment, this could be for you.

Position: Staff Product Engineer

Reporting to: Senior Director of Software Engineering

Supervises: N/A

Schedule: 35-hour work week, Monday through Friday

Compensation: $150,000 - $190,000 (this range is for the NYC area and will be adjusted for other localities; additionally, factors like skills and experience will be considered).

Location: Remote. In-person attendance is expected twice per year during our annual, weeklong all-staff summits. Additional in-person meeting participation is expected at least once per quarter for senior leaders and at least once per month for the executive team. Staff not located in the NYC area are expected to travel for these meetings.

Benefits: Health insurance (medical, dental, vision), retirement contribution with additional option for a match, paid life insurance and AD&D, paid leave time (PTO, compassionate leave, volunteer, holiday, parental), short-term and long-term disability, pre-tax transit, flexible spending accounts, supplemental insurance, summer hours, and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program eligible employer.

Responsibilities

• Own engineering end-to-end for the team - from product surface through backend, infrastructure, deployment, and operations - as a self-sufficient individual contributor.
• Use AI-assisted development (agentic coding tools, code generation, and LLMs in your workflow) to multiply your own output and make a one-engineer team genuinely viable.
• Build AI capabilities into the product where they create real value - LLM integration, prompt and context engineering, retrieval, and agentic patterns - with sound judgment about evaluation, guardrails, and where AI does and does not belong.
• Partner with the product manager and designer as an equal in discovery and delivery: bring a point of view on the customer and the problem, pressure-test direction, and keep the team focused on outcomes over output.
• Raise the bar across engineering by producing reference implementations, reusable patterns and scaffolds, and sharing what you learn through demos, writing, brown-bag sessions, and pairing so other teams can adopt what works.
• Set a standard for quality in code, tests, and documentation that other engineers want to learn from and build upon.

Requirements

• 7-10 years of relevant experience
• Extensive, hands-on software engineering experience, with a track record of independently owning and shipping significant systems end-to-end without scaffolding or hand-holding.
• Demonstrated fluency with AI-assisted development tools, and hands-on experience building AI-powered product features in production - not solely experimentation or prototyping.
• Strong architectural judgment and pragmatic build / buy / simplify instincts across the full stack.
• Genuine product sense: curiosity about users and the problems being solved, and a history of partnering closely with product and design rather than working from tickets.
• Evidence of force-multiplication - making the engineers around you better through example, mentorship, reusable work, or influence without formal authority.
• High agency and a bias to action; comfortable with ambiguity, accountable for outcomes, and effective without management overhead.
• Comfort with visibility - willing to have your work held up as an example and to actively champion better engineering practices across the organization.
• Willingness to perform other duties and special projects as needed/requested.
• Sensitivity and respect for racial, gender, sexual orientation, and cultural differences.
• Commitment to Candid's values: driven, direct, accessible, curious, and inclusive.

About Candid
Candid's mission is to get you the information you need to do good.

The world's problems are only growing, and change can't wait. Nonprofits are needed now more than ever, but all too often their work goes without adequate support.

Candid makes it easier and faster for nonprofits and funders to connect in pursuit of solutions to change the world. Candid is where nonprofits find grants, donors find nonprofits that inspire them, and all can gain insights about the work being done for good.

Candid is a qualifying nonprofit organization as defined by the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. As such, Candid employees may claim their employment time on their PSLF application. We offer a competitive salary and excellent benefits. Due to the high volume of applicants we typically receive, we regret that we can only contact candidates we would like to interview.

For more information on positions available at Candid, please visit our website: Work with us

Candid is an equal opportunity employer. Candid provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.