California State Organizing Director

Fully remote / California-based (significant in-state travel anticipated)

Organization: Governments, landlords, employers, and other powerful actors use artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and related technologies to make decisions about how low-income people work, live, learn, and survive. When people are hurt by AI decision-making, they have few places to turn. TechTonic Justice exists to change this.

TechTonic Justice fights the ground-level harms AI causes low-income communities. We do this mainly by supporting local justice movements--legal aid organizations, frontline service providers, grassroots organizers, and affected communities--to identify and fight harmful uses of AI. We emphasize a multidimensional advocacy approach that blends litigation, community activation and organizing, public education, and narrative advocacy. We are based in Los Angeles and offer our services nationwide, with emphasis on the South and the West Coast.

Position Description: This permanent, full-time State Director position is located in California. The person will work remotely from within California, with ready access to Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay Area preferred. Candidates should anticipate 2 overnight trips per month within California and occasional trips elsewhere. We prefer candidates who presently live in or have extensive organizing experience in California.

The State Director will report to the National Organizing Director and will lead and scale TechTonic Justice’s organizing efforts across California, with an eye toward future expansion into the Northwest. This role is responsible for state organizing strategy, coalition building, leadership development, and alignment with TTJ’s policy and legal advocacy goals. The State Director will be hired alongside TTJ’s first California-based Staff Attorney. Together, these roles are intended to operate in close partnership—integrating organizing, legal advocacy, public education, and narrative strategy to surface AI-related harms and build durable pathways to accountability and protection.

This is a senior organizing role suited for an experienced organizer who is a strategic thinker, a strong relationship-builder, and comfortable operating in a startup nonprofit environment where learning by doing is essential.

Grounding Note on the Work: TTJ’s state-based organizing is explicitly grounded in learning by doing. We are among relatively few organizations attempting to organize impacted people and their allies around material economic harms caused by AI decision-making, while also working to win legislative and non-legislative protections.

Harms from AI-based systems are often invisible, technical, or poorly understood. People frequently do not connect AI to the injustices they experience. As a result, this work may be slow, iterative, and experimental. The State Director will be expected to tolerate ambiguity, learn from strategic losses, and help TTJ build toward long-term success rather than quick wins.

General Responsibilities

Organizing & Strategy

• Lead legislative advocacy, state-level communications, and state-based organizing strategies in coordination with national office staff and aligned with TTJ’s overall goals and policy agenda.
• Track progress toward organizing goals using clear metrics. Share learnings, challenges, and opportunities with senior leadership to adjust strategy as needed.
• Assess the California landscape to identify AI-related harms most likely to motivate engagement and collective action.
• Use organizing software and databases such as VAN, Action Network, or others.

Program Development & Leadership Pipelines

• Recruit and train “do-gooders” (our stakeholders) and advance them through TTJ’s leadership development pipelines while readily providing state-specific feedback..
  • Note: This includes helping shape future approaches to staffing and leadership development; it does not imply near-term hiring commitments.
• Create and maintain systems to track how recruits are identified, onboarded, engaged, and retained across pipelines.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and high-energy organizing culture.
• Manage regional budgets and resources in collaboration with senior leadership.
• Ensure compliance with organizational policies and best practices.

Base-Building & Partnerships

• Maintain or coordinate relationships with legislative members and staff, state regulatory agencies, lobbyists, allied organizations, local-level office holders, and members of Congress, where appropriate.
• Support volunteers, partners, and coalitions in planning and executing events, actions, and campaigns.
• Represent TTJ where appropriate, including in media interviews, regional coalitions, convenings, and conferences.
• Host trainings and educational sessions adjusting for state-specific curriculum
• Prospect and assess other states in the region for potential future expansion of TechTonic Justice’s organizing work.

Cross-Functional Collaboration, Rapid Response, and Safety

• Work in close coordination with TechTonic Justice’s California Staff Attorney as well as TechTonic Justice’s organizing team, staff, and partners to align organizing and legal strategies.
• Support rapid-response efforts related to emerging AI harms, public controversy, or campaign escalation. Can anticipate and respond to catalyzing moments at the state and national level.
• Help develop and implement safety, de-escalation, and risk-mitigation practices for organizers, partners, and community members engaged in public-facing work.
• Contribute to narrative work creating state-specific content in collaboration with communications staff, particularly to move people from digital engagement to in-person action.
• Fosters collaboration and resolves conflict. Debriefs and evaluates each campaign. Works as a team player in a high-pressure work environment.

Skills and Requirements

• Extensive organizing experience with significant responsibility for strategy, campaign leadership, and managing staff.

**Note: We anticipate gaining the requisite experience would take someone at least 5 years of organizing, including 2 years of staff management, with at least 2 years of recent experience within the state. However, these are not strict thresholds. Candidates who consider themselves experienced and who otherwise meet the job requirements should still apply.

• Proven ability to build and execute successful organizing campaigns.
• Experience working with diverse communities and coalitions, including the ability to navigate complex, multi-entity partnerships.
• Comfort articulating the intersections between poverty, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, language, age, disability, and related characteristics
• Driver’s license, access to a car, and proximity to a convenient airport for travel
• Affinity for cultural, digital, grassroots organizing and narrative-driven engagement.
• Empathy and righteous fury

Additional Desirable Qualifications

• Prior experience in tech justice, tech accountability, and/or union organizing.
• Familiarity with the access to justice ecosystem (e.g., legal aid and disability rights programs) and social services infrastructure
• Startup experience or experience building a program or department from the ground up.
• Functional fluency in a second language that is used by significant numbers of low-income Californians
• Experience securing, managing, or collaborating on grant-funded work.
• Familiarity and compliance with all state and local lobbying reporting requirements.

Be Encouraged to Apply:

If you meet the core experience requirement and some, but not all, of the others, please still consider applying or email us to ask about where you fall short.

We encourage applications from Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, women, LGBTQI+ people, people with disabilities, formerly incarcerated people, and people most impacted by systemic injustice.

Employment decisions are made based on qualifications and organizational needs, without regard to race, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, citizenship status, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any protected characteristic under applicable law.

Salary: $95,000-115,000, depending on experience. Current budget projections anticipate annual cost-of-living salary increases. Service time raises are anticipated but still to be determined (subject to budget considerations). TechTonic Justice covers mileage, airfare, hotels, meals, and other necessary travel costs associated with this role.

Schedule Flexibility: TechTonic Justice is committed to providing flexibility and support to fit the successful candidate’s personal situation, including health needs or caregiving responsibilities. This flexibility will be limited by reasonable organizational needs, including sufficient availability for internal meetings, external meetings, and community relationships. Candidates should anticipate occasional deviation from scheduled work hours to complete deadline-driven projects.

** Presently, we do not anticipate offering regular four-day workweeks. **

Benefits: The benefits package presently includes (1) 100% of quality medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance for the employee, (2) 50% of dependents’ medical, dental, and vision insurance, (3) an automatic contribution by TechTonic Justice of 4% of annual salary to a Vanguard 403(b) retirement account (employees may also choose to contribute a portion of their salaries), (4) unlimited paid time off, subject to approval by leadership in accordance with relevant operational considerations, (5) monthly internet reimbursement up to $75, and (6) a professional development fund of $1,500.

To apply: Submit your application via our Careers page by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on February 22. Applications received after this time will not be considered. Please include your resume but not a cover letter; instead, we will provide several short guided questions to answer.

Guided Questions

In lieu of a cover letter, these questions are designed to help us understand how you think, how you organize, your readiness to help build a program in a startup environment, and your ability to operate effectively while reporting to a national team. Thoughtful responses matter more than polished language.

Instructions:

• Please respond to all questions.
• Maximum length: 600 words total; allocate as you see fit.
• Be concise, specific, and creative; do not use AI to generate your answers.
• Bullet points are acceptable where appropriate.

Process: Applications will be reviewed as they come in. The most promising applicants will be selected for a first interview. The most promising interviewees will be selected for a second interview. There is a possibility that we will ask candidates to complete a short exercise. We will check references of finalists. We reserve the option to conduct a third round of interviews if necessary. We plan to extend an offer in early April with the successful applicant starting in April or May.

Accommodations: We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities during the application process and after hiring. Please write people@techtonicjustice.org to request any needed accommodations.

Questions: Please submit any questions to people@techtonicjustice.org. Please do not call unless needed for purposes of accommodations.

Salary: $95,000-115,000, depending on experience. Current budget projections anticipate annual cost-of-living salary increases. Service time raises are anticipated but still to be determined (subject to budget considerations). TechTonic Justice covers mileage, airfare, hotels, meals, and other necessary travel costs associated with this role.

Schedule Flexibility: TechTonic Justice is committed to providing flexibility and support to fit the successful candidate’s personal situation, including health needs or caregiving responsibilities. This flexibility will be limited by reasonable organizational needs, including sufficient availability for internal meetings, external meetings, and community relationships. Candidates should anticipate occasional deviation from scheduled work hours to complete deadline-driven projects.

** Presently, we do not anticipate offering regular four-day workweeks. ***

Benefits: The benefits package presently includes (1) 100% of quality medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance for the employee, (2) 50% of dependents’ medical, dental, and vision insurance, (3) an automatic contribution by TechTonic Justice of 4% of annual salary to a Vanguard 403(b) retirement account (employees may also choose to contribute a portion of their salaries), (4) unlimited paid time off, subject to approval by leadership in accordance with relevant operational considerations, (5) monthly internet reimbursement up to $75, and (6) a professional development fund of $1,500.

English proficiency is required. Functional fluency in a second language that is used by significant numbers of low-income Californians is strongly valued.