Trainee Backend Web Developer Jobs in Oregon (NOW HIRING)

Straight Arrow is on a mission to restore trust in the news by delivering fair, fact-based journalism in a media landscape that too often prioritizes outrage over accuracy. Our small but mighty technology team builds and maintains the platforms that makes this mission possible, from the SAN.com mobile apps to the web experience and the infrastructure that ties it all together. We move fast, build thoughtfully, and believe the right engineer can make an outsized difference.

The Role

We're hiring a Senior Software Engineer specializing in React Native development for our customer-facing mobile app, built and shipped in tandem with work on the Straight Arrow website. You will own the mobile codebase end-to-end - from the React Native and Expo layer all the way down to native bridges we've already built into iOS and Android.

This is a deeply hands-on role. We're looking for an engineer whose primary impact is the code itself: the architecture you choose, the patterns you set in the codebase, the bugs you don't ship, the bar you hold in code review. But you'll also be a force multiplier for the entire engineering team, partnering with product, design, QA, and our web engineers to turn complex problems into shipped products.

If you're a strong senior engineer who's also been the person teammates lean on for technical direction, code review, mentorship, and "let me show you how I'd approach that," this role is built for you.

What You'll Do

• Build new experiences that delight customers.
• Own architecture and day-to-day development of our React Native / Expo mobile application.
• Partner closely with our API engineers, not as a downstream consumer, but as a co-author of requirements and contracts.
• Work side-by-side with the web engineering team to ship cohesive, parallel experiences across platforms; coordinate shared patterns, shared concerns, and shared deadlines.
• Collaborate daily with product, design, and QA to translate ambiguous customer problems into clean, shippable solutions.
• Set the technical bar for the mobile codebase through architecture, code review, testing strategy, performance work, accessibility, and release engineering.
• Mentor and uplevel other engineers and act as a force multiplier rather than a single point of throughput.
• Drive technical decisions with a relentless customer focus: what we ship has to work, in the real world, on real devices, for real users.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with substantial recent experience in React Native development.
• Deep, demonstrated expertise with React Native across both iOS and Android, including the practical realities of cross-platform development (platform differences, native modules, performance, app store release processes).
• Hands-on experience using Expo as a development platform - managed workflow, EAS Build / Submit / Update, and the tradeoffs involved.
• Ability to write and maintain native bridges - comfort dropping into Swift/Objective-C and Kotlin/Java when needed.
• A strong customer focus, with a track record of building customer-facing enterprise applications that real people depend on.
• Experience working with an API, helping define requirements, shape contracts, and contribute to implementation decisions.
• Demonstrated technical leadership as a senior IC: setting architectural direction, raising code quality through review and example, and helping less-senior engineers grow through pairing and technical guidance.
• Excellent collaboration skills with cross-functional partners in product, design, QA, and adjacent engineering teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication; comfort operating autonomously in a fully remote environment.

Nice to Have

• Experience integrating with a WordPress backend.
• Experience with user management and subscription / paywall platforms such as Piano.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and mobile-specific delivery (TestFlight, Play Console, OTA updates via EAS).
• Experience working with consent management systems.
• Experience shipping in a media, news, or content-heavy product environment.

Why This Role

• Small, focused team - your work and your judgment will be visible from day one.
• Real ownership of a customer-facing mobile codebase, not a slice of someone else's roadmap.
• Cross-functional partnership with product, design, QA, and web teams - fewer silos, more impact.
• Mission-driven work in a media environment that takes its responsibility to readers seriously.

The Straight Arrow Mindset

• Customer-focused - you realize that a great user experience is critical to the success of the company.
• Data-driven - understanding the importance of good data in driving product decisions.
• Collaborative - you brainstorm with fellow engineers to come up with solutions to problems. You work effectively with stakeholders, translating business needs into technical solutions.
• Learning-Oriented: You stay current with best practices and emerging mobile technologies.

Compensation & Benefits

• The salary range for this position is $150,000-$165,000, depending on experience and qualifications.
• SAN offers comprehensive health and wellness coverage that ensures our employees have the care and coverage they need to stay healthy, build current and future financial security and maintain work-life balance. All full-time employees and their dependents are eligible to enroll in our benefits. That includes generous paid time off, paid holidays and floating holidays; health coverage, vision and dental plans; retirement plans like the company's 401(k) plan with company match; and more.