Engineer I

About Tavern Research

Tavern Research is a political tech startup building tools and insights to help our customers win elections and make better, evidence-based decisions. We specialize in scaling expert human work, such as content generation and survey research to support thoughtful, data-driven civic engagement. We're a venture-backed, mission-driven, fast-moving, and mostly technical team focused on supporting campaigns and organizations working to strengthen democratic participation. We are experimental by design and expect every team member to continuously improve how they work using new tools and technology. Everything else is on our website. If you still have questions, let us know when you apply!

About You

You're early in your engineering career and hungry to to use your engineering skills to have an immediate impact on the world.You might not have seen every design pattern or system failure yet, but you learn fast, ask good questions, and aren't afraid to dive into a codebase to figure out how it really works.

You're curious, adaptable, and energized by the idea that code can drive real-world outcomes. You don't just want to polish small bugs in the background. You want ownership, responsibility, and the opportunity to level up quickly by working alongside experienced engineers and shipping work that has visible impact.

At Tavern, skills matter more than credentials. We don't care if you took a non-traditional path or left school early. AI is core to how we work-our engineers use AI coding assistance as a standard part of their workflow. This role is a great fit if you're excited to build with modern, AI-enabled tools and iterate quickly.

Political experience is a plus, not a requirement. If our mission resonates with you, we encourage you to apply, even if you don't check every box.

About the role

As an Engineer I at Tavern, you'll be a core builder on the team, turning real requirements into working software, and understanding why we're building what we're building.

This is a hands-on, execution-focused role. You'll write production code, write tests, and help get features across the finish line. You'll work closely with senior engineers who will review your work, challenge your thinking, and help support your technical growth.

Your work might include building a new API endpoint one week, refactoring a legacy tool the next, or improving the reliability of systems our clients depend on every day.

We value in-person collaboration and expect regular time in our Chicago office. We're hiring multiple engineers and reviewing applications on a rolling basis-if the posting is still up, the position is still open.

Responsibilities

• Translate product and internal requirements into clean, functioning code that ships to production.
• Work closely with the engineering team to implement solutions, write unit tests, and participate in code reviews.
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues in production, contributing to the stability and reliability of our tools.
• Use LLMs and AI coding tools to accelerate development and continuously expand your technical skill set.
• Actively participate in planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives to improve how we build and ship software.

Qualifications

• 0-2+ years of relevant experience, with an emphasis on demonstrated ability rather than tenure.
• Proficiency in Python, JavaScript, Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience working with and deploying LLMs or agentic, AI-assisted systems.
• Experience building backend systems, including working with databases, APIs, and infrastructure, with a solid understanding of core data structures and algorithms.
• Familiarity with modern development tools such as Docker, Git/version control, and basic CI/CD workflows.
• Ability to manage multiple projects and priorities simultaneously in a fast moving environment.
• To be explicit, you don't need a degree to work here. You just need to be good at the things we're asking from you.

Benefits

• Premium health insurance
• Unlimited PTO
• Office closed for all federal holidays
• 401k match
• Equity

The pay range for this role is:

85,000 - 120,000 USD per year (Chicago, IL)