ProPublica

Manage and mentor a team of software engineers, oversee technical infrastructure, and ensure best practices in development. | Seven-plus years of software engineering experience, with at least three years in engineering management, and strong knowledge of web development, security, and agile practices. | ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. ProPublica, the nation’s leading nonprofit investigative newsroom, is seeking a director of product engineering to steward the technology and teams behind our core digital products — including our publishing systems, main website, data pipelines and infrastructure. This vital role amplifies our mission of publishing web-first journalism with real-world impact by ensuring our platforms are scalable, efficient and user-centric. We’re looking for an engineering leader who thrives in a multifaceted role that balances strategic technical leadership with hands-on development. Reporting to the senior director of technology, you will manage a dedicated team of product engineers while collaborating closely with designers, product managers, data analysts and agency partners. You will champion engineering excellence, prioritizing speed, reliability, security and interoperability, while establishing the standards and processes that drive continuous improvement. Key Responsibilities Directly manage and mentor a team of software engineers, including leading the performance management process and providing regular feedback. Foster a collaborative, inclusive, kind engineering culture that promotes learning, innovation and technical excellence. Collaborate with the senior director of technology on major technical infrastructure decisions, security implementations and strategic engineering planning. Contribute to technology strategy discussions and provide engineering perspective on product decisions. Establish and maintain engineering standards, best practices and coding guidelines across all product development, ensuring scalability, maintainability and security. Directly commit code where necessary alongside software engineers, leading by example with best practices and approaches. Drive continuous improvement in development processes, including code review practices, testing strategies and deployment pipelines. Manage technical debt and refactoring initiatives to maintain code quality and system health. Implement and maintain development workflows, including CI/CD pipelines, testing automation and deployment strategies. Ensure engineering work uses open standards where appropriate, meets accessibility requirements and is performant. Required Qualifications Seven-plus years of software engineering experience with at least three years in engineering management. Demonstrated success managing and mentoring engineering teams of three to eight people in lean, scrappy environments. Strong background in the modern web development stack, including front-end frameworks like SvelteKit, back-end systems written in Python and PHP, and AWS/Google Cloud (particularly data pipelines, with services like Dagster and BigQuery). Deep understanding and ability to apply core web principles including open standards, performance optimization and accessibility. Strong knowledge and ability to apply data security and privacy best practices. Experience with agile development methodologies and DevOps practices. Proven track record of running and scaling effective, sustainable teams in mission-driven organizations. Experience with hiring, performance management and career development for technical staff. Experience building consumer-facing digital products, preferably in media, journalism or mission-driven organizations. Preferred Qualifications Experience in journalism, media or nonprofit technology environments. Background with content management systems like WordPress, digital publishing platforms or news applications. Familiarity with data visualization and interactive storytelling technologies. Experience with security considerations for protecting sources and sensitive information. This job is full time and includes benefits. ProPublica is based in New York, but we’re open to remote candidates. We have offices in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Chicago; Phoenix; and Berkeley, California. Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. The expected salary range for this position is $170,000 to $180,000. This is a good-faith estimate of what we expect to pay for this position. The final salary figure will take into account a person’s experience, accomplishment and location. ProPublica is committed to paying its staff equitably, and these ranges should not be considered career salary limits or caps. We will begin reviewing applications as we receive them, but we will continue to consider candidates as long as the posting remains live on our site. Questions? Send an email to talent@propublica.org. No phone calls, please. We know there are great candidates who may not fit into what we’ve described above or who have important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. We are dedicated to improving our newsroom, in part by better reflecting the people we cover. (Here is a breakdown of our staff.) We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. And we are taking steps to meet that commitment. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities. We are an equal opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age or any other status protected under applicable law.

Leading and managing engagement reporters to develop investigative stories through community outreach, collaboration, and innovative engagement strategies. | Extensive experience in engagement-driven investigations, team leadership, collaboration skills, proficiency with survey and data tools, and experience working with diverse communities. | ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. We will begin reviewing applications as we receive them but will accept applications until at least Dec. 30 at 5 p.m. ET. ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. We are seeking a deputy engagement editor to grow our unique, award-winning engagement reporting team. In this role, you will help set the course for ProPublica's signature crowdsourced investigations, from callouts to tip lines to citizen-fueled science. You'll do this by supervising members of the engagement reporting team, identifying opportunities for the team in existing lines of reporting and showing editorial leadership on new initiatives. You'll report to the engagement editor and work together to direct the team. The ideal candidate is a sharp communicator, an organized project manager and a creative engagement thinker who is comfortable collaborating across teams, advising colleagues and shaping processes that help powerful journalism reach and involve the people who need it most. Like everyone in our newsroom, our team focuses on accountability journalism and measures success by impact. This journalism has led to impact big and small, from equipping patients with better information to a promised $2 billion to fix Idaho public school buildings. As deputy editor, you'll edit projects that channel thousands of people's stories, including educators, parents, mental health providers, wildfire survivors, migrant dairy farm workers, other vulnerable workers and residents living near toxic hot spots. You'll help engagement reporters fill information gaps with calculators, guides and letter generators, and you'll push forward efforts to reach people in the spaces where they gather, both online and off. What You'll Do Here: • Alongside the engagement and crowdsourcing editor, manage engagement reporters as they work on investigative stories reliant on community outreach and engagement. You'll be the direct supervisor of at least three reporters on the team. • Work with team members — including engagement reporters, a product manager and a tips coordinator — to bring project ideas and pitches to fruition. • Identify promising crowdsourcing opportunities by consulting, brainstorming and meeting with teams all over the newsroom. Help prioritize projects and stories so the team can be deployed strategically across the organization. • Support and guide the team in designing and managing callouts, building surveys, crafting pitch-perfect outreach language and developing the right crowdsourcing strategy for each investigation. • Edit and co-edit stories geared toward the communities we cover, including service journalism, tools and guides. • Collaborate with national, local and specialty reporting teams across ProPublica and in our many partner newsrooms, including through our Local Reporting Network. • Brainstorm the biggest ideas you can imagine with a team of the most creative engagement journalists in the country. This job is full time and includes benefits. ProPublica is based in New York, but we're open to remote candidates. We have offices in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Chicago; Phoenix; and Berkeley, California. Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. The expected salary range for this position is $135,000 to $145,000. This is a good-faith estimate of what we expect to pay for this position. The final salary figure will take into account a person's experience, accomplishment and location. ProPublica is committed to paying its staff equitably, and these ranges should not be considered career salary limits or caps. You should apply if you have: • An interest in pushing the boundaries on how crowdsourcing and engagement journalism can fuel investigations and innovative ideas for how to do it. • At least five years of experience editing, guiding or leading engagement-driven investigations. We will prioritize candidates with experience managing and supervising staff. • Experience building esprit de corps among distributed staff that is grounded in motivating staff, helping them reach career goals and working together. • A strong news sense, keen attention to detail and the ability to connect the dots in investigations. You've worked on projects that shed light on injustices and hold the powerful accountable, and you have a firm commitment to accuracy, high editorial standards and unassailable journalism ethics. • Experience with — and an appetite for — collaborating, both across the newsroom and with external partners. Strong communication skills are key! • The ability to see great potential in ideas brought to the team, but also be able to recognize — and say — when engagement is not the right tool. • Exceptional organizational skills and the ability to juggle many responsibilities, meet deadlines and handle pressure while remaining calm. • Proficiency in survey-building and data management tools such as Airtable, Jotform and messaging bots. • A track record of working with communities whose collective experiences require thoughtful approach and handling. Experience with trauma-informed journalism is a huge plus. • An ability to set and track engagement analytics, and report results to peers, management and senior leadership. You can explain when strategies are working and when they are not, and you have a proven record of adjusting accordingly. • The ability to travel, as needed, for team retreats, training, conferences and reporting projects. What you should send us: Work examples are the most important part of this application. The application form will require you to send us three projects from your portfolio, and it will give you the space to walk us through your own contributions to those clips. Take advantage of this to tell us everything you did, including behind-the-scenes wins you're proud of. Editing is about far more than moving around words. Show us how you think. Don't be shy — tell us what succeeded, including numbers and evidence of impact, and feel free to share details on how you'd do it differently next time. Make sure to read the section above titled "You should apply if" because it's also our evaluation criteria for the position. Use your projects and the rest of your application to show us that you've got the skills we've listed, or why the skills you have are the ones we actually need. Questions? Send an email to talent@propublica.org. No phone calls, please. We know there are great candidates who may not fit into what we've described above or who have important skills we haven't thought of. If that's you, don't hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. We are dedicated to improving our newsroom, in part by better reflecting the people we cover. (Here is a breakdown of our staff.) We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. And we are taking steps to meet that commitment. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities. We are an equal opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age or any other status protected under applicable law.

Lead and manage a YouTube video production team to develop and execute a comprehensive content strategy aligned with editorial priorities. | Six+ years social video production, 3+ years managing YouTube teams, deep video production knowledge, strong leadership, and proficiency with video and project management tools. | ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. We dig deep into important issues, shining a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust — and we stick with those issues as long as it takes to hold power to account. We are seeking a YouTube senior producer to build and manage a new team that will adapt our long-form, written investigative journalism into mid-length video for the platform. In early 2024, ProPublica launched a short-form, vertical video team that has successfully helped us reach and engage with new and existing audiences on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Their work has adapted Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Supreme Court and nationwide abortion bans, showcased reporters and their investigations into secret militias and suspicious patient deaths, and spotlighted whistleblowers sharing revelatory experiences on camera for the first time. Now, as we look to the second phase of our social video strategy, our ambition is to build out a more comprehensive YouTube strategy. We are looking for a leader with a passion for accountability journalism who is excited by the opportunity to answer: What does ProPublica look and sound like on YouTube? We want to experiment with creating mid-length, explainer-style videos; behind-the-scenes and reporter-led POV pieces; and recurring shows focused on specific reporting topics or themes that help build audience habit and retention. The creation of this YouTube team is also happening alongside the launch of a new ProPublica podcast. The videos you help produce for YouTube are meant to serve as stand-alone editorial products, and we're looking for your platform-native expertise to drive experimentation that helps us learn quickly, adapt and deliver the most compelling storytelling formats while adhering to our rigorous editorial standards and practices. You should be comfortable working with journalists and editors across the newsroom. This is a full-time role that will report directly to the deputy audience editor and will work collaboratively with our social video editor for vertical video. This role will supervise the members of the YouTube team, which sits within the larger ProPublica audience team. Essential responsibilities: • Develop and execute a YouTube-first content and programming strategy aligned with editorial priorities that includes a mixture of short-form and mid-length as well as vertical and horizontal videos. • Maintain ethical journalistic principles, standards and practices, and use editorial judgment to translate stories to video with the sensitivity, care and appropriate tone required of our investigations. • Oversee and manage the video production pipeline, setting editorial direction and leading a team of producers as well as a technical editor. • Collaborate with reporters, senior editors, visual editors, audience team members and other staffers to identify and produce compelling video storytelling. • Monitor the editorial calendar and pitch ideas for YouTube video content and packages. • Define and maintain our YouTube workflow processes and systems to ensure a consistent weekly production of video content. • Recruit and manage freelance producers, editors and technical staff, as needed. • Work closely with the audience data analyst to maintain monthly video analytics reports that help inform future optimization, strategy and more. • Keep up with trends and changes on YouTube and in the video-viewing habits of audiences consuming news content. • Supervise the YouTube team, including a producer and other roles. • Ability to travel for assignments, training and meetings as required. About You The ideal candidate will have many of these skills: • Six-plus years in social video production. Your portfolio should demonstrate videos you have produced for YouTube specifically. • At least three years managing a team producing YouTube videos in a newsroom, media organization or production studio. • Experience creating a YouTube platform strategy that conceptualized and executed on several content formats and series — with goals of driving both channel growth and audience retention. • Deep understanding of beginning-to-end video content production, including script writing, filming, editing, motion graphics and animation, and packaging for publication. • Strong understanding of YouTube algorithmic trends and optimization strategies, including expertise in crafting effective video titles, thumbnails and descriptions — all with a goal of driving channel growth and maximizing reach and engagement for our videos across the platform. • Strong understanding of video analytics, including a proficiency in YouTube Studio, to guide and shape content strategy for the platform. • Fluency in translating complex reporting into compelling video scripts with an eye for editing scripts for pace, hooks and viewer retention. • Ability to communicate video storytelling pitches through memos, scripts or storyboards to advocate for projects with YouTube potential across the newsroom. • High proficiency in media production software, such as Adobe Creative Suite, including Premiere Pro and After Effects, Avid and Figma. • Experience with project management software such as Trello, Airtable or Notion. • Strong leadership and management abilities, with experience overseeing teams and projects. • A collaborative mindset, stellar communication skills and the ability to work on several projects at once. You'll need to stay organized and focused and lead a team to meet concurrent deadlines. And some of these: • Experience building and scaling teams from the ground up. • Experience in on-site production, including shooting on professional camera equipment and knowledge of lighting and audio setups. • Experience using a digital asset management system such as Woodwing. • Knowledge of media rights and clearances and a working knowledge of copyright permissions. This job is full time and includes benefits. Candidates located in or willing to relocate to the New York or Washington, D.C., metro area are preferred. Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. We have offices in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Chicago; Austin, Texas; Phoenix; and Berkeley, California. The expected salary range for this position is $120,000 to $130,000. This is a good-faith estimate of what we expect to pay for this position. The final salary figure will take into account a person's experience, accomplishment and location. ProPublica is committed to paying its staff equitably, and these ranges should not be considered career salary limits or caps. We will begin reviewing applications as we receive them, but we will continue to consider candidates as long as the posting remains live on our site. Questions? Send an email to talent@propublica.org. No phone calls, please. We know there are great candidates who may not fit into what we've described above or who have important skills we haven't thought of. If that's you, don't hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. We are dedicated to improving our newsroom, in part by better reflecting the people we cover. (Here is a breakdown of our staff.) We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. And we are taking steps to meet that commitment. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities. We are an equal opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age or any other status protected under applicable law.

Maintain high-quality news stories, manage copy flow, and ensure accuracy and style consistency across various media. | At least three years of copy editing experience, familiarity with CMS and publishing tools, strong news judgment, and proficiency in AP style. | When you read news stories, do you find yourself weighing their fairness and checking if their logic is sound? Do you cringe at every typo? Does inconsistent style drive you bonkers? Then you could be our next copy editor. In this role, you'll work on our copy desk to maintain the high quality our stories, to manage the flow of copy and to publish our work online. (And you'll also be on the lookout for the little things, like the missing ''of'' in the previous sentence.) You'll get to flex your editing muscle not only on complex and lengthy investigations, but also on breaking news stemming from our deep dives, newsletters, graphics, videos and columns. You'll also at times have to convert stories from the style of a partner newsroom into Associated Press style (so long, coöperate; hello, cooperate!). Other responsibilities will include helping draft corrections, clarifications and updates to stories, and occasionally filling in for the assistant managing editor for standards. We're looking for someone with: • At least three years of experience as a copy editor at a news organization. • Experience working with Google Docs and publishing tools, including a CMS like WordPress and an organization app like Trello. • Razor-sharp news judgment and an unshakeable sense of fairness. • Prior experience bulletproofing and polishing hard-hitting investigations and long-form narratives. • An eye for detail; you should be meticulous in examining copy and matching facts in text with those presented in graphics, in video and on social media platforms. • The ability to make sure all copy is consistent and typo-free. • A deep understanding of AP style. • Experience working with complex and sensitive topics. • Good communication skills and diplomacy. In this role, you'll work across teams and need to seamlessly handle requests both large and small from reporters and editors. • The ability to work on-call nights and weekends as part of a rotation. • Excellent time management skills and experience meeting deadlines. • Experience prioritizing and handling multiple projects at various stages of production. • The ability to travel as necessary for team meetings and trainings. This job is full time and includes benefits. ProPublica is based in New York, but the copy desk is distributed, so we're open to remote candidates. We have offices in New York City; Washington, DC; Atlanta; Chicago; Phoenix; and Berkeley, California. Applicants must be eligible to work in the US The expected salary range for this position is $85,000 to $100,000. This is a good-faith estimate of what we expect to pay for this position. The final salary figure will take into account a person's experience, accomplishment and location. ProPublica is committed to paying its staff equitably, and these ranges should not be considered career salary limits or caps. We will begin reviewing applications on Jan. 5, 2026, but we will continue to consider candidates as long as the posting remains live on our site. Questions? Send an email to talent@propublica.org. No phone calls, please. Note: Posting is subject to change so please refer to career site for latest availability (SBJ-G337).