Tech for good job boards

My compilation of job boards highlighting mission- and values-focused companies doing good in the world.

I was recently on the job market, and even though I ended up finding my new role through a personal connection, I did start to prep for a full-on job search. I also now have a handful of friends who are looking for work, so I wanted to share the strategy I had planned to undertake in the hopes that it'll be helpful to others.

My plan was to start by being relatively picky, looking primarily for jobs at values-driven companies. For me, that means companies working in social impact or otherwise directly doing good in the world, working in an impactful field like climate or public health, and/or with an explicit commitment to treating its workers well.

I compiled a list of job boards and signed up for a bunch of job alerts. I'm now using these boards to help folks in my network find a new job, and I've been quite pleased with the number of interesting jobs I've been able to discover. So even though I didn't personally end up using these, I'm pretty optimistic that they are relatively high-quality sources. To me, a high quality job board means that it: has many opportunities, doesn’t have too many stale roles, and gives me the ability to filter by remote jobs. It’s also enriched for technical roles at social impact companies.

Here’s what I’ve found!

Tech for good

While many of these job boards are tech-focused, there are also a lot of non-technical roles like project/program managers, customer success, account executives, etc. So give them a look

• Fast Forward, a tech nonprofit job board: https://jobs.ffwd.org/jobs

  • "Opportunities from over 600 organizations leveraging tech for social impact."

• All-hands network: https://jobs.all-hands.us/

  • Focused on civic engagement, social impact, advocacy, and campaigning organizations and product, engineering, data, digital, comms, or operations roles

  • You can also submit your resume to them and they say they’ll match you with roles (but I did so and never heard back)

• Code for America job board: https://civictechjobs.codeforamerica.org/

  • “The Public Interest Tech Job Board is run by Code for America as part of our effort to connect anyone with an interest in civic technology to digital services that put people first.”

  • This board isn’t the best though, you can't search for remote jobs or make a job alert

• Jobs at certified B-corporations: https://www.bwork.com/

  • This board isn’t tech-focused, but working for a B-corp would be cool!

  • B corporations are “businesses that do more than make a profit [and] prioritize people and our planet in everything they do.”

• data.org opportunities: https://data.org/opportunities/

  • Funding and career opportunities in the data for social impact community.

  • This board has very few opportunities, but they're ones I haven't seen on the other boards. It also includes non-job funding opportunities like grants and fellowships.

Political tech

These job boards are more focused on political tech in the Democrat and progressive spaces.

• Progressive Data Jobs: https://www.progressivedatajobs.org/

  • Progressive Data Jobs supports job-seekers in finding data, analytics, and tech jobs across the progressive and Democratic space.

  • I did run across some stale listings here, so pay attention to the posted date and confirm that the listing is still live before getting your hopes up.

• Higher Ground Labs: https://jobs.highergroundlabs.com/jobs

  • Higher Ground Labs is a startup accelerator and venture fund that works in the political tech space

  • This board doesn’t have that many postings, so it’s possible that their board only includes companies they work with.

• GAIN POWER: https://careercenter.gainpower.org/

  • “GAIN POWER is a resource center for Democratic and Progressive leaders, talent, and campaigns looking for professional opportunities to engage in politics. We offer career, networking, and marketing opportunities and events.”

  • This job board is not explicitly tech-focused, so there are a lot more non-technical roles here. There are also a lot of postings for political campaigns here, so check this board out if you’re interested in seeing what jobs are out there.

  • It also looks like you can submit your resume to their network.

Climate

These job boards are focused on climate jobs, usually climate tech. I didn’t get super far down this search, so I’m sure there are many other high-quality resources (and higher-quality lists of resources) than this one out there.

• Climate Base: https://climatebase.org/

  • A standard climate tech job board

• Work on Climate: https://workonclimate.org/

  • This is not actually a job board, but rather a community space. I think they have a slack group, and they have a handful of resources for getting started in climate.

  • They have links to other job boards, I clicked through them and included the ones that seem high-quality here.

• Climate tech list: https://www.climatetechlist.com/

  • This is also not a job board, but it does have a list of climate companies where "software is mission-critical". You can filter for remote companies, and then click through to each of their career pages. I found a handful of intriguing opportunities this way, so I’m including it here.

Quality of life

To a certain extent, if a company is truly committed to treating its employees well then the field they work in isn’t as important. To me, that would mean either supporting a 4-day workweek or being a remote-first company.

• Jobs with 4 day workweek: https://4dayweek.io/

  • This board lists jobs from companies who have adopted a 4-day workweek (truly the dream)

  • It has jobs from all over the world, so not too much selection in the US. But hey, a 4 day workweek would be awesome so this board is always worth a look imo!

• Remote data jobs: https://outerjoin.us/

  • This board has mostly data science & engineering roles, but does have a smattering of other tech-adjacent jobs.

  • It is supposed to be showing only remote roles, but I did come across some mis-listed roles. This board has lower signal-to-noise than the 4-day workweek one, but is also a good place to go to expand your possibilities, especially if you’re in data or software engineering.

Government opportunities

There are a handful of really cool opportunities to bring modern tech ideas and skillsets to our government. Here’s a handful that I’ve found so far, but even in the couple years between my job search they’ve multiplied so I’d keep an eye on this space!

• 18F: https://18f.gsa.gov/join/

  • 18F is a technology and design consultancy for the U.S. Government, inside the government.

  • They have a board with individual listings for software development, design, content, and operations roles in government.

• US Digital Service (USDS): https://www.usds.gov/

  • USDS is more of a fellowship-like organization than an individual job posting. They’re looking for folks with a large variety of skills relevant to tech, including: engineering, product, design, procurement, data science, operations, talent, and communications.

  • The way it works is that you apply to USDS, and then once you’re hired you pick a project team to work with. USDS teams work across multiple agencies, so it seems to have a lot of flexibility and different options.

• Directorate for Digital Services (DDS): https://www.dds.mil/

  • This was explained to me as like USDS, but for the Department of Defense, but it looks like they do have specific roles listed rather than an open application like USDS.

• US Digital Corps: https://digitalcorps.gsa.gov/

  • This one is for recent graduates only (“You are a recent graduate who has received an associates, bachelors, masters, professional, doctorate, vocational or technical degree or certificate from a qualifying educational institution within the past two years”)

  • It’s a two-year fellowship for software engineering, data science and analytics, product management, design, and cybersecurity.

• Presidential Innovation Fellows: https://presidentialinnovationfellows.gov/

  • This is for folks working in tech who are mid- to senior-level in their career, and places folks in agencies to serve as thought leaders.

• Data science jobs at NIH: https://datascience.nih.gov/jobs

  • A list of data science and data-adjacent jobs within the NIH, which includes many institutes and centers.

How I use these job boards

In general, my approach to looking for a job on any of these job sites is as follows:

1. Start by searching for the keyword or two related to the job title I want. I make sure to add any deal-breaker filters, like being remote.

2. If the keyword search yields only a handful of results, I'll repeat the search without any keyword, and instead just look for roles that meet my criteria. Then I just scroll through the titles to see if any catch my eye.

3. Once I stumble on an interesting company or a company that seems to have multiple postings on the board, I'll often take the extra step and go poke around its careers page to see if there are other open roles that I'm not seeing. I also take this extra step if I find a role that's no longer open, especially if it's a remote-first company with a cool mission.