Front-End Developer

Introduction

Iswe is a social impact foundation dedicated to finding ways to put people at the heart of social and political decision-making to solve some of society’s greatest challenges. 

We are seeking a motivated, resourceful and conscientious Front-End Developer to join our small digital product team, working on Assemblis - a hugely ambitious global platform to strengthen community-led decision-making - as it moves from a working prototype to a fully fledged product used by community groups worldwide. We are looking for some eager to have an impact, both on the product they are building and on the world.

The period from 2025 to 2026 presents a unique opportunity to scale the use and impact of Assemblis around the COP30 UN Climate Conference—set to take place in the Amazon at the end of 2025—by leveraging strategic relationships, including key support from the Brazilian government.

About Assemblis

Assemblis will support communities across the world to run community gatherings, deliberate on shared challenges, and make collective decisions. The platform combines step-by-step guidance, storytelling features and data aggregation, enabling community groups to deliberate meaningfully, share their insights and connect with each other.  Our vision:

A world of resilient local communities that have the tools and confidence to make fair, effective decisions, through community assemblies that facilitate learning, build solidarity and have clear pathways to local and global action.

Assemblis will support people to deliberate on challenges and act together in their communities, whilst building a global picture of citizen needs, actions and solutions, which will inform global decision making. One of the ways it will do this is through the Global Citizens’ Assembly - a permanent institution that Iswe and partners are building.

A Global Citizens’ Assembly for COP30 to be launched in Brazil in November is the key opportunity to pilot Assemblis. We are currently testing a minimum viable product (functional prototype) with small sets of global users, and are looking for someone who can lead the iteration process, with the goal of an alpha launch in Climate Week in September.

Assemblis’s vision - A world of resilient local communities that have the tools and confidence to make fair, effective decisions, through community assemblies that facilitate learning, build solidarity and have clear pathways to local and global action. 

Main duties

• Work directly on the web frontend application for using Typescript, Svelte.js, and Tailwinds CSS

• Ensure scalability, performance, and maintainability using coding best practices that prioritise high code quality

• Produce performant web solutions to allow the platform to be used effectively in global regions with low-bandwidth, or limited access to consumer technology

• Build features and applications with a mobile-first approach to responsive design

• Work with a close focus on accessibility, compatibility with screen-readers, and adherence to WCAG Guidelines

• Write effective tests to cover functionality and support future development

• Contribute to product decisions to help prioritise the most important features and solutions for our users world-wide

• Troubleshoot and debug issues, providing timely resolutions and maintaining the stability of the application

• Support other Iswe websites, built using Craft CMS

• Collaborate via Slack, Trello, documents, and frequent video conferences

Your skills and experience

Essential skills and experience

• Previous experience in front end development

• Deep understanding of Javascript, preferably with a strong grip on Typescript

• Deep understanding of modern web standards, CSS, and cross-browser compatibility

• Experience using source control, agile methodologies and other collaborative workflows

• Excellent communication skills, capable of conveying technical information to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Experience working with UI design systems, and from Figma design files

• Experience integrating with RESTful APIs

Desirable skills and experience

• Pro-active attitude, with the ability to work both autonomously and to collaborate remotely

• Experience working in a small team, ideally having worked in agency or start-up environments

• PHP experience

• Experience building isomorphic web applications and SSR

• Experience with security and data protection best practices

• Experience with data visualisation libraries such as D3.js

• Understanding of front-end state management

• Experience with Agile methodologies: capability to work in an Agile environment, delivering in sprints, responding to change, and collaborating effectively within a multidisciplinary team.

• Prior involvement in projects related to citizen engagement, deliberative democracy, or civic-tech platforms 

A note on representation

We know that building a team representative of wider society fosters creativity and innovation. We welcome people of all backgrounds, identities and experiences and are committed to being a place where all belong. We therefore particularly welcome applications from candidates who are disabled, Black, Asian or from other minority ethnic backgrounds, who identify within the LGBTQIA+ community, or identify as from a lower or disadvantaged socioeconomic background as these groups are currently under-represented on our staff team.

About Iswe

We believe that many of the crises we face today - health, climate, the cost of living etc - are symptoms of failing governance structures, and that putting people in the driving seat of decision-making will transform our futures for the better. 

Our team has decades of experience in democratic innovation. Projects include Global Assembly for COP26, Good Help and The Future Armenian. Iswe is a fast-growing foundation, dedicated to empowering citizens to play a leading role in the decision-making that affects their lives. 

Our work is founded on strong values, including openness, transparency and humility. We believe that when ‘I’ (an individual) becomes ‘we’ (part of the collective), the results are transformational. We are actively working to build a healthy culture, rooted in care and characterised by being self-organising and self-reflective. We are committed to addressing the dynamics of oppression in ourselves and our work.