MISSION STATEMENT
OUR NATIONAL CONVERSATION (ONC) seeks to reduce partisanship and promote effective solutions to America’s challenges. Powered by America’s youth, we host a media outlet to include a website, articles, social media shorts/reels and a weekly podcast.
We're currently at about 68 student interns, with a few volunteers. We have weekly All Hands meetings (Mondays), and IT meetings occur on Wednesdays. The links below share a bit more about us:
Job Description
***We're currently not funded; this is an unpaid internship. Some people receive college credit from their school for working with us. We consider other individuals, but at this time college credit is our most feasible and suitable option for those who are eligible.
Job Description: The Software Development Intern contributes to ONC’s mission of providing nonpartisan news, opinions, and policy solutions by completing essential tasks in the Technology department at ONC. The Software Development Intern is responsible maintaining our website.
Page designs, bug fixes, complete a few pages, etc. This intern will research and use Wordpress and PHP software. They will also implement new features according to incoming design and functional requirements.
The Software Development Intern will work closely with the IT Director of Technology but most work will be completed independently. Therefore, time management is an essential skill for this role.
This position is remote, with work primarily conducted over Zoom and Slack, so applicants must be comfortable coordinating in a remote environment and are expected to maintain a high level of communication. Some choose to extend their internship past the amount of time they initially committed to, provided their performance meets the required standards.
Benefits: Flexible schedule, college credit, professional networking, and resume-building experience.
Compensation: This is not a paid position.
Responsibilities:
Contribute to building and maintaining a website from scratch using frameworks.
Connect and maintain a database to the website.
Implement new features according to incoming design and functional requirements.
Document the code base and general structure of the overall product.
Ability to write clean, efficient, and maintainable code for backend functionality and to fix bugs.
Write high quality applications that can achieve massive scale.
Document user requirements, create design documents, develop self-documented code, conduct testing, and create user and system documents.
Communicate effectively with the team leads, IT Director as needed.
Requirements: The Software Development Intern should have the following skills, education, and experience:
Current student working towards a degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, and/or related fields.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills (English) are required.
Willing to learn general programming principles and skills as well as specific frameworks and methodologies on the job.
Experience working with WordPress, including theme customization, plugin management, and general WordPress development.
Solid knowledge of PHP, particularly in the context of WordPress development.
Able to work peacefully and collaboratively in a team-setting.
Ability to work remotely and on their own schedule in order to make deadlines.
Google Workspace experience preferred.
Submit a portfolio of previous work to demonstrate your skills.
Ability to attend weekly Tech Department meetings (typically Wednesday evenings).
Must be authorized to intern in the U.S.
Preferred Skills:
WordPress
PHP
Javascript
Python
All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines. Below is a link describing our culture and vision.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10TLnFDqBBTF3RpYCGpDYCz-HgNMy5JVM/view?usp=drive_link
https://www.ournationalconversation.org/
Skills Required
- Current student working toward a degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, or related field
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills (English)
- Willingness to learn programming principles, frameworks, and methodologies on the job
- Experience working with WordPress, including theme customization and plugin management
- Solid knowledge of PHP, particularly in the context of WordPress development
- Time management skills and ability to work independently to meet deadlines
- Ability to work peacefully and collaboratively in a team setting
- Ability to work remotely and on own schedule
- Submit a portfolio of previous work to demonstrate your skills
- Ability to attend weekly Tech Department meetings (typically Wednesday evenings)
- Must be authorized to intern in the U.S.
- Google Workspace experience
- JavaScript
- Python
What We Do
Our National Conversation (ONC) is a nonpartisan news platform and non-profit organization that seeks to reduce partisanship and promote effective solutions to America's challenges. Powered by youth, the organization hosts a media outlet, produces educational materials, and facilitates dialogue intended to make America a better country, serving as a trusted source of fair, accurate, and balanced information about politics and public policy.
