Senior Software Engineer

State Affairs•Washington, DC

4h•$180,000 - $210,000•Onsite

About The Position

State Affairs is the nation’s leading news and policy intelligence platform focused on state governments. We combine nonpartisan coverage of Statehouses across the country alongside state government data and AI-native tools into a singular platform. We inform and empower decision makers, policy professionals and citizens through our award-winning journalism and data – delivering profound insights to help our customers decode and act on state politics and policy. We’re building a category-defining business that will reshape America as we strengthen visibility into what’s happening and why at the state level. Senior Software Engineers own user‑facing features end‑to‑end: slick React/Next JS interfaces, performant Node APIs, and Postgres‑centric data models that keep up with petabyte‑scale content. One sprint you’ll prototype a semantic‑search UI backed by vector embeddings; the next you’ll build a real‑time collaboration layer that lets policy analysts co‑author annotations and compare version histories without ever refreshing the page. As the Senior Software Engineer, you will Ship vertical product slices (Figma wireframe, React component, Node handler, SQL/Mongo query, and deployed on AWS via Docker and GitHub Actions). Design delightful data workflow such as instant search, real‑time diffing, collaborative annotation, and hiding terabytes behind sub‑200 ms interactions. Partner with the design and product management teams on thin‑slice scoping, experiment flags, and measurable customer outcomes. Instrument and iterate on dashboards, structured logs, Feature‑flag rollouts, and blameless post‑mortems. Evangelize product craftsmanship through storybook‑driven UI, shared design tokens, and code reviews that coach rather than gate‑keep.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or related field
10+ years of professional work experience as a full stack software engineer
Professional work experience building product React/Next and Node/TypeScript applications
Ability to translate abstract user problems into specific milestone and negotiate scope
Ability to program in SQL and various scheme designs, such as Postgres, with the ability to utilize Mongo
Ability to operate CI/CD (Docker and GitHub Actions) and infrastructure as code, with appropriate collaboration with the infrastructure team (Terraform/CDK)
Ability to utilize LLM tools (Claude-Code, Cursor, Codex) to accelerate coding and debugging

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of search indexes or vector databases powering RAG/semantic workflows.
Knowledge of SSR & ISR patterns in Next 14’s app‑router
Knowledge of AI/ML concepts and the development of AI-driven features and models
Professional work experience with data‑viz (D3, Recharts) or rich‑text editors (Slate, TipTap)
Prior professional work experience in a start-up organization

Responsibilities

Ship vertical product slices (Figma wireframe, React component, Node handler, SQL/Mongo query, and deployed on AWS via Docker and GitHub Actions).
Design delightful data workflow such as instant search, real‑time diffing, collaborative annotation, and hiding terabytes behind sub‑200 ms interactions.
Partner with the design and product management teams on thin‑slice scoping, experiment flags, and measurable customer outcomes.
Instrument and iterate on dashboards, structured logs, Feature‑flag rollouts, and blameless post‑mortems.
Evangelize product craftsmanship through storybook‑driven UI, shared design tokens, and code reviews that coach rather than gate‑keep.