The Web Applications Engineer is a member of the Product Strategy team at the American Press Institute. This team works at the intersection of journalism and product to help news organizations navigate the needs of being effective, successful digital organizations. This new role is crucial as API enters a new era, seeking to better address the urgency of the multiple crises in journalism and local news, from the erosion of public trust in the media to the dwindling of business revenue.

The Engineer supports the technical development of API’s news products. The current product portfolio includes the audience data tools Metrics for News and Source Matters, and the Web Applications Engineer will help ensure the tools operate reliably and meet the needs of users, who are journalists in newsrooms in the United States and other countries. The product portfolio will expand in the future, and this position helps link our product roadmap to our strategic goals as we support news organizations who are trying to understand, engage and serve their audiences better.

You’ll work closely with your manager and senior engineer to establish career path options as your interests and experience grows, and API supports professional development opportunities for all employees, including conferences, classes, workshops and programs.

The role requires some client-facing duties, so the ability to communicate clearly is essential, as well as a willingness to collaborate with other team members to understand the needs of our clients, which can help refine our product vision and strategy. The position reports to the Director of Product Strategy. Day-to-day responsibilities generally include:

• Design, prototype, and communicate new solutions to pain points that exist in the application or within newsrooms related to analytics and the democratization of that data.
• Define and communicate user roles and user stories for new features and functionality within Metrics for News, Source Matters and other products.
• Work with the Senior Applications Engineer to design architectures and maintain code conventions across the applications.
• Write, debug, and document code for frontend and backend software built on the Laravel PHP framework on a LAMP stack (i.e., Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).
• Be a technical point of contact for newsroom partners to conduct setup, receive feedback, resolve questions or issues, and advise on optimal configuration.
• Maintain the support ticket pipeline with the Senior Applications Engineer to resolve bugs and provide technical information to all of our partners.
• Contribute to the knowledge base for our products to communicate technical changes or help document user-friendly instructions and explanations that can help with technical support.
• Occasional travel to meetings, API-organized summits or industry conferences.
• Contribute to a collaborative workplace that values inclusion and belonging.

Experience and qualifications

We believe that diversity in lived experiences, perspectives, knowledge, and ideas strengthens journalism, its business and our organization. The American Press Institute is an Equal Opportunity Employer, where we encourage applications from candidates from communities traditionally underrepresented in journalism and from people of every age, race, ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, disability status, medical condition, veteran status, and familial status.

Candidates should have two to four years of experience in a developer role. You’ll be working with thoughtful managers and colleagues who will invest in your career and help you gain skills and achieve professional goals while maintaining great work-life balance. If you don’t have all of the experience below, but are willing to learn and make an impact in local news, please apply. General technical qualifications that would help in this role include:

• At least 2 years of experience working in a LAMP software environment (i.e., Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). PHP 8 experience is a plus.
• At least 2 years of experience working with the Laravel PHP framework.
• Familiarity with Amazon Web Services, such as EC2, Elastic Beanstalk, RDS and S3.
• Familiarity with third-party API integrations is preferred but not required, such as Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics and Natural Language, and Chartbeat.
• Strong background in Git.
• Excellent organizational and communication skills.
• Excellent time-management skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively with internal staff and many external partners, and to work independently.
• Familiarity with the media business and current issues affecting the news industry is helpful.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree preferred, but at least two years of professional experience as a developer or military experience may substitute for educational credentials, especially where the credentials may pose a barrier to candidates from traditionally underrepresented groups.

Employment details

This is a full-time position with a salary between $70,000 to $85,000 commensurate with skills and experience, and the following benefits:

• 20 days of paid time off, plus major holidays (9 per year) and two floating holidays
• Medical, dental and vision benefits
• 401(k) plan with a generous matching policy
• Medical and/or dependent flexible spending plan
• Paid parental leave available
• Employer-paid life insurance, short-term and long-term insurance policies
• Pre-tax mass transit plan
• Professional development opportunities (for example, conference attendance or stipends for course enrollment)

API’s main office is located in Arlington, Virginia. We will consider remote candidates anywhere in the continental United States, as well as those who prefer to work in and/or want to relocate to our office. The API team is mostly working remotely at present and has flexible expectations about working from the office in the future. Remote candidates should be willing to travel to the API main office for occasional meetings — typically trips of 2-3 days every quarter. The job also may include occasional travel to conferences or other API events.

How to apply

Please email your resume and technical portfolio to jobs@pressinstitute.org. We also invite candidates to fill out our affirmative action form here. Please include this form with your application. Candidates must be located in the continental United States and authorized to work in the United States. Please mention “Web Applications Engineer” in the subject line so we can direct your application to the right people. Please be prepared to provide three professional references.

We’ll continue accepting applications on a rolling basis until we make a hire.