Senior News Apps Developer

NPR's News Apps/graphics team is looking for a civic-minded developer to join us. Our team works on data visualizations, information design, creative story presentations and custom tooling to help tell stories in the NPR newsroom. (You can see some of our past work on our team blog and GitHub sites.) One of our big projects for 2024 will be helping our audience make sense of the year's elections, including key issues, results and analysis. But that's not the only story in 2024: There's lots to cover in other important spheres, like climate or health or international coverage. We also aspire to create more moments of joy. We're curious to know what you're passionate about, too.

On this team, you will have to work quickly in a dynamic environment. You will encounter new problems every day and may wear many hats, as a front end web developer, data wrangler, sysadmin, reporter, cartographer, etc. We are always open to new tools and to teammates who bring experience with different technologies and disciplines.

We work closely with various journalists and storytelling units around the NPR organization and across our network of member stations, including photographers and video journalists, beat reporters and show producers, copy editors, digital editors and engagement editors.

What We Are Looking For

• Strong news judgment and a sense for what makes a good data or visual story that serves the audience
• Strong communication skills to coordinate with colleagues across the newsroom, understand quickly-changing news situations and explain complex information to diverse audiences
• A team player willing to collaborate in an open environment, working with people across the newsroom with a variety of skill sets and areas of expertise
• Commitment to using and contributing to open-source software
• Demonstrated initiative and self-starting skills; ability to work independently
• Sincere curiosity, attention to detail and enthusiasm for making things
• A passion for Internet-native storytelling
• A commitment to NPR's core work of diversity and inclusion in our coverage, making sure that our data journalism is respectful and representative of the full range of American experience.

This is a union represented role covered under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement with SAG-AFTRA.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Translate editorial goals into sustainable applications and infrastructure
• Work closely with individual story producers, editors and teammates to identify opportunities for visual storytelling, data visualization and/or analysis
• Assess what work realistically can be executed in the time available and meet agreed-upon deadlines
• Document your work for teammates, newsroom colleagues and/or external audiences, as relevant
• Coach other team members, articulating story, design and code suggestions in a helpful and supportive way
• Lead the way in defining the team's overall technical approach, including maintaining and extending the team's technical infrastructure and development best practices.

The above duties and responsibilities are not an exhaustive list of required responsibilities, duties and skills. Other duties may be assigned, and this job description can be modified at any time.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience
• Five or more years of experience in news development (or a similar field)

WORK LOCATION

• Remote Permitted: This is a remote permitted role. This role is based out of our Washington, DC office but the employee may choose to work on a remote basis from a location that NPR approves.

REQUIRED SKILLS

• Experience with Node, EJS and other elements of our technology stack
• Experience designing interactive or data-heavy projects with a largely static architecture. (We try to avoid running servers unless absolutely necessary.)
• Solid news judgment. You can think of software in terms of the information needs of the audience
• Fluency in JavaScript, HTML and CSS, including responsive web design techniques and other modern development practices
• Proven success implementing complex designs in HTML/CSS/JS
• Experience developing software projects using the Git version control system

PREFERRED SKILLS

• Adaptability to work across different/new technology stacks
• Experience with setting up servers, crons and server-side data processing workflows
• Experience with the AP elections API
• Experience with GIS/mapping software such as QGIS, Leaflet, topojson, mapshaper, or ESRI products
• Familiarity with data analysis techniques, especially in command-line or scriptable environments like Jupyter Notebook, Pandas or numpy
• Experience working iteratively and collaboratively (for example, using Agile or a similar project management process)
• Experience with static site tools, such as Jamstack, Rollup or Webpack, and Gatsby
• Experience using web components, including custom elements and shadow DOM, or other JavaScript component frameworks (such as React or Vue)
• Familiarity with Amazon Web Services and provisioning AWS resources using the console, CLI and API
• Experience developing projects with web accessibility best practices in mind
• Experience with Python and familiarity with web frameworks such as Flask or Django
• Demonstrated experience applying user-centered design thinking to editorial work

JOB TYPE

• This is a full time, exempt position.

COMPENSATION

Salary Range: The U.S.-based anticipated salary range for this opportunity is $120,000-$135,000, plus benefits. The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum salaries NPR expects to provide for new hires for the position across all US locations.

Benefits: NPR offers access to comprehensive benefits for employees and dependents. Regular, full-time employees scheduled to work 30 hours or more per week are eligible to enroll in NPR's benefits options. Benefits include access to health and wellness, paid time off, and financial well-being. Plan options include medical, dental, vision, life/ accidental death and dismemberment, long-term disability, short-term disability, and voluntary retirement savings to all eligible NPR employees.

Does this sound like you? If so, we want to hear from you. Please submit a cover letter, your resume, portfolio and (if applicable) GitHub profile.