About the Opportunity

This is a globally remote, full-time 6-month contract budgeted for a rate in the range of US $300-500 per day. The BASICS Fellow in Android Development will work closely with an open source tool team (Umbrella) to implement code improvements that will further long-term sustainability for the tool.

About BASICS Specialists

Internews' BASICS project (Building Analytical and Support Infrastructure for Critical Security tools) is improving the sustainability of critical open source privacy and security tools by building ties between tool teams and the communities they serve. Many powerful and widely used open source security and privacy tools are maintained by individuals or small groups of volunteers who are often under-resourced, lack the ability to receive grant funding, and do not have the means to hire additional support to advance their project's goals.

Internews will place skilled individuals with open source tool teams as contributing specialists who will help address tool needs. Contributing specialists will be supervised and supported by Internews and connected with a partner from the tool team(s) for mentoring and coordination.

Our Commitment to a Culture of Belonging

Internews is a very diverse organization globally. We value the perspectives that result from the inclusivity of different voices, and the foundation of our work is to support free and open communications between all people. We are an organization of dynamic, mission-driven individuals who are passionate about our core values and about supporting positive change in the world. We pride ourselves on our commitment to innovation and flexibility. We are an EEO employer and strongly encourage people from all backgrounds to apply for any of our open positions.

About Umbrella App

Umbrella is the only security handbook you'll ever need in a free, open source app. It's up-to-date information you can trust. And it's always in your pocket.

The app is written in Kotlin and uses Coroutines, the minSdkVersion  is 16 and targetSdkVersion is 28.

It also specifically uses:

-Dagger for DI,

-Conductor for presentation logic (instead of fragments),

-OkHtpp, Retrofit and Gson, Jackson XML for networking

DbFlow with SQLCipher support and IOCipher integration

It has some other libraries, like parsers, presentation and support libraries that can be found in many apps.

Scope of Work

This is a paid position on a 6-month full-time contract. The expected Level of Effort for the Specialist will be 40 hours per week contributing to activities such as the following:

• Assist in working through a backlog of development ideas and inputs on Android
• Implement features to help organizations integrate the tool into their security teams
• Build and implement a Matrix Protocol integration to enable users to provide instant feedback and communicate
• Help create testing versions for beta users and collect feedback
• Make other technical contributions in close coordination with the team, with an emphasis on reducing barriers for users or contributors

Qualifications We're Looking For

The Specialist should have:

• Experience building apps (ideally using Kotlin)
• Familiarity with Git and collaboration platforms like GitHub or GitLab

Preferred Qualifications:

• Prior experience contributing to open source tools
• Lived experience in Internet environments facing challenges emerging from electricity and bandwidth limitations, censorship, surveillance, and other oppressive, anti-open-internet activities

The applicant should demonstrate enthusiasm for Open Source software, excitement to learn, and commitment to freedom of speech and journalist safety.

To Apply:

Submit your resume and optional cover letter. (You may skip all questions in the Work and Education History section.) Please enter '1234' in the Annual Salary required field when submitting your application. You will be asked to provide your Daily rate before submitting your application.