Director of Engineering (Volunteer)

Mentor A Promise is a New York City–based nonprofit serving children and youth (ages 5–18) experiencing housing instability, grounded in the belief that every child is a Promise—full of potential, dignity, and possibility. We deliver consistent, high-quality programming across mentorship, literacy, social-emotional learning, and creative expression in shelters, schools, and community spaces, creating structured environments where students can grow, be seen, and build lasting skills. Through signature experiences like The Imagination Studio, The Kitchen Table, The Sound Lab, and The Story Space, we nurture academic development, emotional well-being, and creative voice, all within a trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and accessibility-centered framework.

Technology at MAP exists to strengthen the mission. We build digital products and systems that improve access, strengthen operations, support learning, and create better experiences for the children, families, volunteers, and communities we serve.

PromiseStack is MAP’s product and technology division, responsible for designing, building, and continuously improving the digital products and technology systems that support the organization. The division brings together product management, software engineering, UX/UI design, quality assurance, cloud engineering, and emerging technology to transform organizational needs into secure, accessible, scalable, and meaningful digital experiences.

About the role

Mentor A Promise is seeking an experienced Director of Engineering to lead application engineering and provide technical direction across front-end, back-end, API, integration, and database development. Reporting to the Senior Director of Product & Technology, this leader will oversee the engineering lifecycle from technical design through delivery while developing the people, architecture, standards, and engineering practices required to build reliable and maintainable software.

The Director of Engineering is responsible for application engineering. The Cloud Engineering team retains ownership of cloud infrastructure, hosting architecture, infrastructure security, deployment environments, and cloud operations. The two functions work closely to ensure applications move safely and efficiently from development into production.

This is an active leadership role for someone who can combine technical depth, engineering judgment, people leadership, and disciplined execution. The role is volunteer-based with a commitment of approximately 5–10 hours per week and a minimum 6-month commitment required. It is remote with NYC-based collaboration as needed.

Responsibilities

• Engineering Leadership
  • Lead, mentor, and develop front-end, back-end, and database engineers.
  • Establish clear engineering priorities, ownership, and technical expectations.
  • Help recruit and onboard engineering volunteers.
  • Develop emerging technical leaders and strengthen engineering capabilities across the team.
  • Foster a collaborative culture grounded in craftsmanship, accountability, documentation, and continuous learning.
• Architecture & Technical Direction
  • Define and maintain application architecture and engineering standards.
  • Make thoughtful technical decisions balancing scalability, security, maintainability, accessibility, performance, and available resources.
  • Establish appropriate design patterns and development practices.
  • Reduce unnecessary technical complexity and address technical debt strategically.
  • Ensure engineering decisions are documented and understandable to future contributors.
• Front-End Engineering
  • Guide development of responsive, accessible, intuitive, and high-performing user experiences.
  • Establish front-end architecture, component, testing, and coding practices.
  • Collaborate closely with UX/UI Design to translate product experiences into reliable software.
  • Promote accessibility and cross-device compatibility as core engineering requirements.
• Back-End & API Engineering
  • Oversee development of application services, business logic, APIs, integrations, and server-side systems.
  • Establish standards for API design, authentication, authorization, error handling, testing, and documentation.
  • Ensure application services are reliable, maintainable, and appropriately scalable.
  • Guide integration with third-party services and organizational platforms.
• Database Engineering
  • Guide relational and NoSQL database architecture, schema design, querying, indexing, and optimization.
  • Promote strong standards for data integrity, security, reliability, and performance.
  • Review data models and database changes for maintainability and long-term scalability.
  • Collaborate with privacy and security teams on appropriate access and data-protection controls.
• Software Delivery & Quality
  • Oversee the software development lifecycle from technical planning through production readiness.
  • Establish coding standards, peer-review expectations, testing practices, and engineering quality controls.
  • Partner with QA to strengthen automated and manual testing.
  • Monitor application performance and lead resolution of significant application-level technical issues.
  • Improve development workflows, release readiness, and engineering predictability.
• Product & Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Partner with Product Management to translate product requirements into technically feasible solutions.
  • Collaborate with UX/UI Design, QA, and Project Management throughout the development lifecycle.
  • Communicate technical tradeoffs, dependencies, risks, and resource needs clearly.
  • Participate in roadmap planning and technical estimation.
  • Keep engineering decisions aligned with user needs and organizational priorities.
• Cloud Engineering Partnership
  • Partner closely with Cloud Engineering to support reliable application deployment and production integration.
  • Define clear interfaces between application and infrastructure responsibilities.
  • Coordinate application requirements involving environments, deployment pipelines, observability, secrets, networking, and production readiness.
  • Maintain clear accountability: application engineering remains under the Director of Engineering; cloud infrastructure remains under Cloud Engineering leadership.
• Security, Privacy & Responsible Engineering
  • Embed secure development practices throughout the software lifecycle.
  • Partner with PromiseShield, privacy, and governance teams when applications handle sensitive information.
  • Support vulnerability remediation and application-security improvements.
  • Promote least-privilege access, secure coding, appropriate data handling, and responsible technology practices.
  • Ensure engineering solutions reflect MAP’s safeguarding and privacy requirements.
• Leadership Expectations
  • Meet regularly with the Senior Director of Product & Technology to discuss priorities, progress, risks, and technical decisions.
  • Take ownership of the engineering function by setting direction, solving problems, and driving measurable progress.
  • Communicate regularly with engineers and direct reports so the team remains informed, supported, and clear about priorities.
  • Provide timely visibility into technical risks, delays, dependencies, and resource needs.
  • Follow through on commitments and model accountability, collaboration, technical rigor, and integrity.
  • Recruit, develop, recognize, and retain engineering volunteers.
  • Build systems and documentation that prevent institutional knowledge from depending on individual contributors.
  • Collaborate effectively across product, design, QA, cloud, cybersecurity, privacy, and organizational leadership.
  • Keep MAP’s mission and the experiences of the people we serve at the center of technical decisions.

Qualifications

Strong candidates may bring significant experience in software engineering, engineering leadership, application architecture, full-stack development, or related fields. Technical experience may include:

• Front End
  • JavaScript / TypeScript
  • React, Angular, Vue, or comparable frameworks
  • HTML and CSS
  • Responsive development
  • Web accessibility
• Back End
  • Node.js
  • Python
  • Java
  • .NET
  • PHP
  • Comparable server-side technologies
• Databases
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • SQL Server
  • MongoDB
  • Comparable relational or NoSQL systems

Candidates should demonstrate:

• Strong understanding of software architecture and design patterns.
• Experience designing RESTful APIs and system integrations.
• Strong knowledge of database design and application data modeling.
• Understanding of application security and secure development practices.
• Experience with Git and modern development workflows.
• Experience leading engineers and delivering software products.
• Strong technical judgment, problem-solving, communication, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Ability to explain complex technical decisions clearly to technical and nontechnical partners.
• Experience with Agile or comparable iterative software-development approaches.

Experience with every technology listed above is not required. We value strong engineering fundamentals, sound technical judgment, adaptability, and the ability to lead across technology stacks.

What Success Looks Like

• Engineering priorities and technical ownership are clear.
• Applications have coherent, documented architectures.
• Code quality and review practices become consistent.
• Engineering delivery becomes more predictable and transparent.
• Front-end experiences are accessible, responsive, and performant.
• APIs, back-end systems, and databases are reliable and maintainable.
• Technical debt is identified and managed intentionally.
• Product, design, QA, and engineering collaborate effectively.
• Application Engineering and Cloud Engineering operate with clear responsibilities and strong coordination.
• Engineers receive mentorship and opportunities to grow.
• MAP can scale its digital products without sacrificing security, quality, or maintainability.

Why This Role Matters

Great technology is not defined by how much code is written. It is defined by whether the technology is reliable, understandable, secure, maintainable, and useful to the people it exists to serve. The Director of Engineering helps build the technical foundation behind MAP’s digital future—ensuring that promising ideas become dependable products capable of supporting children, families, volunteers, and communities at scale.

Schedule

• Approximately