Job opening at NLnet

(Junior or senior) technology assessor

Currently open — full-time position (part-time possible if no conflict of interest)

NLnet is looking for an enthusiastic, knowledgeable and people oriented technology assessor. For you, libre technology is a labour of love. If so, this is a unique opportunity to take things one level up. As assessor, you have a critical role at the cutting edge of free and open source software & hardware, open standards, open data and open science. Together with your fellow assessors you curate our project portfolio, and actively keep it awesome and coherent by helping to select the right efforts — and support the teams involved thoughout the project lifecycle. Together with a small group of dedicated colleagues you help society make the most out of the available talent and means.

A core part of your work is to review and appraise incoming applications to our various grant programmes. You recognise interesting and important ideas that have strategic potential, and will make a real-world impact. You are able to rapidly understand complex technical propositions, and deduce their pitfalls and limitations. You can debunk unjustified claims and keep track of the state of the art in open technology. You can imagine alternative futures, and extrapolate ideas. You have a nose for talent, even if it doesn't present itself well — and where needed, you iterate with applicants to improve the scope and quality of proposals.

You like helping humans make their vision come to life, and bringing people together for their mutual benefit. You help make their world bigger in terms of ambitions, create synergy and deduplicate across efforts. You brainstorm together with teams when their projects face challenges, and help schedule support from our not-for-profit service partners where needed. You track progress, evaluate results (regularly you will be the first user) and unburden applicants and grantees where possible.

You are either a versatile allrounder (a tech savvy generalist with a broad interest in all things libre and open), or you are a domain expert on one of the key areas within our portfolio (such as free silicon/open hardware, cryptography or networking protocols). You love diving into new technologies and paradigms, and are driven by advancing the public benefit.

NLnet is a public benefit organisation established in 1989. As a small foundation with a big mission we work with hundreds of free and open source projects from around the world, on all layers of technology and with a network of trusted support partners. As technology assessor you fuel our project portfolio, and in return get to see what the future will look like — sometimes years before others.

You are analytical, imaginative and mission-driven. You have excellent writing skills in English, and a positive and constructive attitude. Furthermore, you:

• have an academic level of work and thinking
• have up-to-date knowledge of and interest in open source software and hardware development
• have broad experience using open source software and operating systems
• are eager to learn and willing to dive into potentially unknown areas of knowledge

Offer

You will have a responsible and intellectually very rewarding job in an informal and hard working not-for-profit, serving the free and open source community to the best of their abilities. Your contribution will be of critical importance to the FOSS ecosystem, and in return you will have a lot of room to deepen your skills as a professional. As a grantmaker we directly work with some of the very best people in technology, and see what they come up before almost anyone else — and you will learn every day. You will have the opportunity to dive into interesting projects (both big and small) and engage with state of the art technology.

If you are passionate about free and open source software, and believe that we should not wait for others to fix the problems of technology today — then this is the ideal position for you!

We offer:

Our office is in Amsterdam. We can discuss financial support for relocation to The Netherlands.

Are you interested and do you meet the requirements in the profile? Then send your application, accompanied by an up-to-date CV and a targeted motivation to openings@NLnet.nl. Please include your personal top three of things you would like to see change in the internet if you had the chance to.

About NLnet

Stichting NLnet is a recognised philanthropic non-profit foundation. NLnet supports independent organizations and people that contribute to an open information society. We provide microgrants, advice and access to an interesting global network we established over the years. We depend on great people to help us achieve our important mission to create a more open, resilient and trustworthy information society.

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