- Direct link: Software Engineer, the Underlay Project: Help build tools for better public knowledge graphs, with a thoughtfully distributed, mission-driven team.
Abstract
The Knowledge Futures Group is hiring a software developer to help us build the Underlay, a distributed public knowledge graph. We are looking for someone with strong web development skills and an interest in the decentralized web, to implement the first Underlay Registry. You will work with experimental technologies, make significant contributions to product direction, and help shepherd a research project into the real world. We pay competitively with startups, and will take you and your ideas seriously. Join us!
About the Knowledge Futures Group
The Knowledge Futures Group, founded as a partnership between the MIT Press and the MIT Media Lab, is a not-for-profit consortium that builds technology for the production, curation, and preservation of knowledge in service of the public good.
About the Underlay
The Underlay is creating an accessible distributed public knowledge graph for curating, publishing, and querying structured data. We are designing a more robust knowledge ecosystem for everybody, drawing on on lessons learned from the Semantic Web, the centralization of data silos, and the privatization of Internet infrastructure.
The Underlay builds on the RDF data model and works like Git: data providers curate collections of data (analogous to a Git repo) that are published on registries (analogous to Github). Data consumers find and download collections, or query a registry directly. Data in collections can carry rich, granular provenance that queries can use for context-specific credibility filtering. Registries can collaborate to resolve compound queries.
About The Role
- Lead the planning and implementation of the first Underlay registry.
- Work with the research team to identify and fill in gaps between experimental implementations and production needs.
- Help develop and mentor engineers and future developers on the team.
- Champion best practices internally and externally to the open-source development community.
About You
- You’re an experienced full-stack JavaScript/TypeScript developer with an interest in connecting the world’s knowledge.
- You’re familiar with semantic web and decentralized web technologies, or excited to learn about them.
- You’re comfortable designing medium-scale web applications from the ground up. We use TypeScript, React, Next.js, Node.js, Prisma, Postgres, and Go, but are open to other tools.
- You have experience implementing experimental technologies in production environments.
- You have a grounding in what makes a backend performant and maintainable, and what makes a frontend fast and intuitive.
- You want to work on a team that respects your ideas about the design, user experience, and ethics of software, not just the code you produce.
- You want to build tools that empower people without preying on them.
Working With Us
- Work with a distributed team: We are based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but the majority of the KFG team works from elsewhere.
- Enjoy industry-standard perks: Unlimited PTO with a yearly minimum, your own computer of choice, and fully remote work.
- Contribute to our larger mission at the Knowledge Futures Group: We’re building infrastructure to create and access knowledge, controlled by people who serve the public interest — starting with core projects like PubPub and the Underlay. As a KFG team member, you’ll be able to contribute to those efforts as well, and we’ll support any ambitions you have to publish in our journal, the Commonplace, and beyond.
How to Apply
Send us an email (subject: I’m interested in the Underlay Engineer Position) with a resume and brief cover letter, and we’ll be in touch!
We welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds with diverse skillsets. If you have significant personal experience or engagement with low-income communities, international communities, or fields and languages that are underrepresented in scholarly publishing and open data, we strongly encourage you to apply. This job description is intended to be a guidepost, not a checklist. If you feel like you could do a great job in this role, even if you don’t exactly meet every qualification, please consider applying.
Eligibility
You must be legally able to work in the United States or Canada to apply for this role. Related contract work is available for those outside the US.