0to1 Engineer

Summary

Mozilla is building a position in open source AI — through research, community, tooling, and public advocacy. A big part of that work is showing, not just telling. We need someone who can take an idea that would otherwise become a Figma deck or a long document and turn it into something you can click on, deploy, and share — fast.

This is a project-based prototyping role, but it requires a real engineer. You'll build working demonstrations of what open AI infrastructure can do: developer surfaces, integrations, and small applications that make abstract ideas tangible and invite conversation. You'll work in public, alongside the people building our community and social presence, so that what you build becomes part of how

The contractor in this engagement will partner closely with the teams working on Mozilla Intelligence and Harbor, as well as community and social media leads, to create prototypes that help Mozilla show up credibly in the places where developers already gather. The goal is not to build production systems or own a long-term product roadmap, but to produce working artifacts that spark engagement, learning, and conversation in the open source AI ecosystem.

What you'll do

• Build working prototypes of developer surfaces, tooling integrations, and applications on top of open source AI infrastructure — with a bias toward shipping something real in days, not weeks
• Work with coding agents and AI-assisted development tools as a core part of your workflow — not as a novelty, but as the way you operate
• Translate concepts, framing documents, and strategy ideas into demonstrations that can anchor a conversation, a community event, or a piece of content
• Collaborate closely with the social media and community team so that what you build is legible and shareable — demos that developers can understand and react to, not just screenshot
• Contribute to Mozilla's open source repositories and work in the open; your code should be something the community can fork, extend, and learn from
• Stay close to the open source AI ecosystem — know what's being built, what's broken, and where a working prototype can surface a real gap or opportunity
• Help evaluate and opine on open source AI tools, stacks, and developer surfaces through the lens of someone who's actually tried to build on them

What you'll bring

• Solid software engineering fundamentals — you write code that others can read, and you know the difference between a prototype and production
• Demonstrated comfort working with coding agents and AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, or equivalent) as a force multiplier, not a crutch
• Experience with the open source AI stack: inference, orchestration, evaluation, or adjacent layers — you've built something real on top of open models
• Fluency in Python and/or TypeScript, with enough range to pick up whatever the project needs
• Experience building APIs, developer-facing tools, or integrations — you understand what it means to build for other builders
• A strong sense of what makes a prototype useful for a conversation, not just technically functional
• Comfort working in public — open repos, community feedback, building in the open
• Strong written communication; you can explain what you built and why, to a technical audience, without over-engineering the explanation

What success looks like

• A steady output of working prototypes that make Mozilla's open source AI work tangible and demonstrate what's possible on open infrastructure
• Prototypes that get picked up — forked, extended, written about, or used as the basis for community conversations and events
• A genuine voice in the open source AI developer community, built through what you ship and share
• Close, productive collaboration with the community and social media team so that what you build has distribution and reach

Engagement model

• Fixed-term, contract-based engagement
• Flexible hours and outcome-oriented working style
• Work produced through this engagement is expected to be developed in the open where appropriate, including public repositories and community-facing channels
• This opportunity is scoped around specific prototyping and ecosystem-facing deliverables, rather than a permanent employee role

Budget for this opportunity: $200,000–$227,250 annualized equivalent.

This is a fixed-term contract opportunity, not a permanent employee role. Final contract terms — including scope, weekly hours, duration, and payment structure — will be determined based on the needs of the engagement and the selected contractor’s experience. This posting reflects Mozilla’s good-faith budgeted range for the work at the time of posting.

Applicant Privacy Notice