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 Justices 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 TTJs policy and legal advocacy goals. The State Director will be hired alongside TTJs first California-based Staff Attorney. Together, these roles are intended to operate in close partnershipintegrating 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:TTJs 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 TTJs 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 TTJs 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 ag…