Open Call for Tinkerers, Hackers and Community Leaders

The San Francisco Standard is a digital news organization covering San Francisco with depth and speed. We're seeking builders, hackers, and vibe coders to create projects about San Francisco.

About the role

We're looking for people who are already building things—community leaders, data scrapers, weekend shippers, vibe coders, hardware tinkerers, pranksters—with a San Francisco angle and a publishing home with The Standard.

Responsibilities

• Create tools that make public data visible, trackable, or searchable in new ways.
• Design stunts, installations, and creative experiences that engage San Francisco residents.
• Build websites, bots, apps, and other projects that improve civic processes or reveal surprising aspects of the city.
• Develop physical objects or installations that capture data or create moments in public space.
• Execute projects that are creative, provocative, and sometimes chaotic, but avoid harm or harassment.

Requirements

• Building skills: coding or vibe coding, ability to ship ideas.
• Curiosity about San Francisco: attention to city systems, absurdity, beauty, and bureaucracy.
• A sense of where the line is: creative, provocative projects with transparency and accountability, not surveillance or doxxing.

Qualifications

Not specified.

Skills

• Programming languages (JavaScript, Python, etc.)
• Data scraping and analysis
• Web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
• Design and prototyping tools (Sketch, Figma, etc.)
• Hardware tinkering
• Satirical writing and humor

Benefits

Commensurate to the project submitted.

Pay

Commensurate to the project submitted.

Schedule

Flexible, based on project timeline.

Benefits

Published by a real news organization, with a written piece explaining the project and its impact.