Senior Copy Editor at Code for Africa (CfA)

The ideal candidate will be highly proficient in English and have extensive experience working with a range of content from training presentations and marketing materials to grant proposals and donor reports. Candidates must have a demonstrable track record of professional copy/sub-editing in a journalistic or technical environment. An understanding of technology innovation, or digital activism/democracy topics will be an added advantage.

The successful candidate will join CfA’s Knowledge team, which spearheads digital storytelling initiatives and data journalism training partnerships as well as community initiatives. These partnerships include a network of more than 50 partner newsrooms and 30 partner universities across Africa, as well as CfA communities such as the WanaData women data science/storytelling network, the africanDRONE civic drone community and the sensors.AFRICA sensor journalism initiative. The Knowledge team is also the custodian of other major CfA public infrastructure, such as the continent’s largest open data portal, openAFRICA, and Africa’s largest census data portal, HURUmap.

The successful candidates will work as part of a multinational and multilingual team using digital collaboration tools to create content for a global audience and international media partners.

Required: minimum requirements include

• Minimum of 5 years copy/sub-editing experience in a fast-paced newsroom or in digital journalism or non-governmental organisation.
• Exceptional command of the English language with impeccable grammar, spelling, punctuation, and syntax.
• Demonstrable ability to improve the meaning and clarity of copy through correct grammar, consistency of voice, tone and terminology, factual accuracy, logical sentence and document structure, and readability of the final product.
• Demonstrable experience in copy editing a range of content, such as grant proposals, donor reports, presentations, social media content, and blogs
• Proven ability to tailor content for a variety of audiences, channels, and formats, always avoiding a “one size fits all” editing mindset.
• The ability to work fast, creatively and accurately in a remote fast-paced deadline-driven environment to deliver content that is credible, consistent and always factually correct. 
• Strong organisational and decision-making skills.
• Digital-first workplace skill-sets, including proficiency in collaborative work solutions such as Google Workplace (Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc.), Slack (or equivalents such as Teams, etc), and project management tools like Trello (or equivalents such as AirTable, etc)

Preferred: characteristics that will give you a competitive advantage

• Experience working in an NGO/CSO environment
• Knowledge of fundraising strategies to help improve donor proposals.
• Previous experience developing style guides and training inhouse teams on how to apply it to their work
• The ability to communicate and work effectively with multicultural – and multilingual – writers, editors, and project team members who work remotely and in different time zones.