Open Call for Tinkerers, Hackers and Community Leaders

The San Francisco Standard is a digital news organization covering San Francisco with depth and speed. We’re looking for a specific kind of person: someone who builds things online that make people pay attention or come together in the real world. 

Maybe you found a loophole in a public database and turned it into something people couldn’t stop sharing. Maybe you built a weird website over a weekend that ended up in the news. Maybe you organized an event that got hundreds of strangers to show up and do something ridiculous together. Maybe you made a tool so useful or so funny that people sent it to everyone they know.

We want to support people like you to keep doing that — with a San Francisco angle and a publishing home with The Standard.

Here’s the idea:

We’re paying builders, hackers, and vibe coders to make projects about San Francisco. Could be a tool. Could be a website, a bot, an installation, a game, an event, or something we haven’t thought of yet. The only requirements: you built it, it’s interesting, or at least makes them smile, stop or think about San Francisco and the people who are here. 

If it’s good, we’ll pay you and publish it. If you keep making good stuff, we’ll keep paying you.

The kind of people we want:

We’re looking for people who are already building things — not sending resumes. That includes:

• Community leaders with weird and fun ideas who design experiences, challenges, and events that get strangers off their couches and into the city
• Data scrapers and FOIA nerds who find public datasets nobody knew existed and make them usable or entertaining
• Weekend shippers who go from idea to live site before most people finish a to-do list — because the idea was too funny or too interesting to sit on
• Vibe coders who use AI tools to prototype fast and don’t care how the code looks as long as the thing works and people love it
• Hardware tinkerers who build physical things that capture data or create experiences in the real world
• Pranksters with a point who blur the line between satire and social commentary — the kind of person who sees a system and immediately thinks about how to question it

If your projects tend to go viral before anyone knows who made them — you’re who we’re looking for.

The kind of projects we want:

• A tool that takes something buried in public data and makes it visible, trackable, or searchable in a way nobody’s done before
• A stunt or installation that makes people stop, laugh, think, or share — and in the process reveals something true about the city
• A creative experience — online or offline — that gets San Franciscans to actually do something together
• A website, bot, or app that takes a frustrating civic process and makes it less painful or more transparent
• A data visualization or interactive that shows people something surprising about how their city actually works
• Something physical — a device, a sign, an object in public space — that captures information or creates a moment
• Honestly, something we haven’t thought of. The best submissions will probably be things we couldn’t have predicted.

The common thread: you made something, it worked, and people cared.

What we pay:

Commensurate to the project you’re submitting! Let’s talk. 

Plus you get published by a real news organization. We’ll write up what you built and why it matters.

What you need:

Building skills. You can code — or you can vibe code. Either way, you can take an idea and turn it into something that works in a browser, on a phone, or on a street corner. You don’t need a CS degree. You need to be able to ship.

Curiosity about San Francisco. You pay attention to how the city works — the systems, the absurdity, the beauty, the bureaucracy. You’ve probably already noticed something that bugs you or delights you. Start there.

A sense of where the line is. We want projects that are creative, provocative, and sometimes a little chaotic. We don’t want projects that put people at risk or cross into harassment. Transparency, not surveillance. Accountability, not doxxing. Fun, not cruelty.

How this works:

Already built something? Send us a link. If we like it, we’ll pay you and publish it.

Have an idea? Pitch it. Tell us what you’d build, why it’s interesting, and how you’d pull it off. Show us past projects. If we’re into it, we’ll greenlight it and figure out budget and timeline.

Our editorial team will be involved. We’ll check the underlying data or reporting. We might pair you with a reporter or ask you to add context. This isn’t just pushing code to your GitHub — it runs under The Standard’s name, so it has to hold up.

What we’re not looking for:

• Dashboards that repackage data that’s already easy to find
• Projects with no San Francisco angle
• Anything that targets private individuals or exposes personal information
• Proposals without working examples of past projects
• Pure concept decks with no ability to execute
• Applications with only a resume

Submit your work:

Send either:

• Finished project: Link + how you built it + what data it uses + your background
• Pitch: What you’d build + why it’s interesting + timeline + links to past projects

We review everything. If it’s good, we’ll publish it and pay you.