Research Fellow
Civitech is a public benefit corporation dedicated to creating a fairer and more equitable democracy by building the tools and infrastructure needed to increase civic participation, empower Democratic candidates to win, and support the success of progressive causes. Since its founding in 2019, over 500 partners -- a range of nonprofit organizations, national political committees, and individual campaigns -- have utilized Civitech’s tools to reach tens of millions of voters to help create a more equitable and progressive democracy. The Research Fellow will support one or multiple research verticals focused on the extraction, normalization, and ingestion of civic data. This person would join a team working to build an unparalleled database on U.S. government officeholders, candidates, and places. Civitech is a remote-first company hiring within our current footprint of 27 states (AL, AK, CA, CO, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IL, MA, MD, MN, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NV, NY, OH, SD, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI, WY); Civitech has an office in Austin, TX. About our Data Acquisition Team: The Data Acquisition team is focused on building processes to extract, normalize, ingest, and regularly refresh large volumes of civic data. This includes data relating to current positions, officeholders, and candidates for office from the federal level to local special districts. This team also collects geospatial data to power our products and direct users to useful voting resources. The Research Fellow will report to a project manager on the Data Acquisition team. It is important that our team reflects the diversity of the organizations we seek to serve. We strongly encourage women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and those otherwise underrepresented in the technology sector to apply. What You Will Do:
- (50%) Research:
- Drive fast-paced, complex research projects through thoughtful planning, organization, and delegation
- Conduct rigorous quality assurance (QA) on complex datasets
- Upload large volumes of data to our internal database, investigate data flags, and collaborate with technical teams to troubleshoot issues
- Use tools like SQL, web scrapers, internal data platforms, and Google Sheets to extract, clean, and upload data
- (50%) Project Management:
- Support project management across one or more research verticals (e.g. Candidate Research, Office Holders, Early Voting etc.) to ensure accurate, timely, and robust data delivery
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Delegate tasks to contractors, monitor progress, and find creative solutions to meet tight deadlines
- Develop project checkpoints, milestones, and dashboards for assessing and communicating progress to the broader team
- Manage large, distributed teams of remote researchers to ensure efficient and accurate research
- Provide proactive communication, actionable feedback, and recognition to researchers
About You:
- 1-3 years of professional experience in project management
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Strong attention to detail and excellent time management skills
- Committed to leveraging technology and data products to increase civic participation
Additional Qualifications (desired but not required)
- Experience working with political data
- Proficiency with SQL and GIS