BallotReady is searching for a Database Manager to ensure we have the best-in-class database and datasets to power our digital products, API, and data solutions—and, as a result, join our team in working to mobilize voters and constituents to take action at every level of government.

Who We Are

BallotReady is an award-winning startup working to help every voter in America cast an informed vote on every race, every election. We create digital nonpartisan voter guides and build tools to help advocacy groups and campaigns inform and mobilize voters and constituents, powered by the most comprehensive database on every level of government.

We’ve worked with organizations such as Snapchat, Tiktok, Spotify, and the Miami Heat to inform and turn out over 35 million voters. Now, we’re focused on innovative methods for empowering communities to hold elected officials accountable and take effective action year-round.

What You’ll Do

The Database Manager, who can be based anywhere in the U.S. and will report to the Senior Director of Data Strategy, is an internal authority on how our database is supposed to work and ensures that it’s doing so successfully. In more detail, this role is responsible for the following:

• Designing database structures for new tables or fields, using relational database best practices
• Organizing and auditing all methods of entering, editing, and deleting records from the database, including software interfaces, SQL scripts, and API mutations
• Consulting with the Research Team on project set-up and translating manual data gathering into database requirements
• Maintaining documentation on how database fields interact with our products and internal tools
• Collaborating with our Product Team on designs for new internal tool or software product development to ensure the database interacts appropriately with the designs
• Developing models of our database structure for internal and external informational purposes
• Managing the health of the infrastructural datasets that make our products work (geospatial position boundaries, formulas for when positions are up for election, audits of projected future elections, etc.)
• Overseeing the health of all our civic data products, including developing automated and manual QA systems

Who You Are

To succeed in this job, you must excel at:

• Relational database design and maintenance (PostgreSQL preferred)
• Writing and maintaining documentation on databases and products that interact with them
• Development of advanced SQL queries
• APIs (GraphQL) and software to interact with them (Altair, Postman)
• Geospatial data within a relational database (PostGIS)
• Agile development practices, particularly collaborating with Engineering and Product Teams along sprint cycles
• Providing input on new product design specifications
• Communicating complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders

A few items that are plusses, but not requirements for the job:

• Knowledge of civic data, election practices, and BallotReady’s research processes
• Managing and delegating tasks to a small team
• Skills in Python, R, and/or GIS software

If you were here today, you’d be:

• Working with a UX designer and software engineer to build a new tool that helps constituents learn about their elected officials and make plans to meet with them, brining your expertise of how our database works and how the new software should utilize various fields and tables
• Helping us build a new internal tool that streamlines the gathering of candidate names and the positions they’re running for, taking into account data integrity and QA steps
• Identifying answers to employee questions about what value a field should have in a strange edge case they just found. This might start as answering a Slack message and evolve into having a resource where employees can answer questions themselves.
• Supporting our candidate recruitment customers who receive data exports of 200,000+ current officeholders nationwide by building out a dataset health dashboard
• Consulting with our Research Team to develop a new GraphQL API mutation so they can update records in the database that touch multiple complex tables

What Else You Should Know

At BallotReady, we’re strong believers in flexibility in exchange for responsibility. We hire exceptional people who are excited about our mission, and give them the freedom and leadership to act in support of constituents first. Our work is driven by our core values, which we encourage interested applicants to explore.

BallotReady is an equal opportunity employer and we value having staff who reflect the diversity of all constituents and voters. We especially encourage people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, transgender and gender non-conforming people, and people with disabilities to apply for this role. We know that the more we live out our commitment to building a diverse and inclusive team, the better our work will be.

Starting Annual Salary: $91,500 - 112,500

*please note that BallotReady does not negotiate salary as part of our commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion

Benefits: monthly remote work stipend (for use towards home internet costs, coworking space access, home office furniture, etc.), healthcare, dental, vision, disability, life insurance, 401k platform, FSA, commuter benefits, unlimited PTO

Location: Anywhere in the U.S. (we are 100% remote)

Hours: We are completely remote, and, as a result, flexible on work hours. We do generally expect employees to be accessible during “BallotReady Standard Time”, which is 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. CT Monday through Friday