Take a role on a diverse, collaborative, and growing team. Come help build the future of journalism as States Newsroom’s Software Engineer. The role offers an opportunity to help inform communities across the nation, with your code reaching five million people each month and powering both national reporting and state-focused journalism.

Who we are

States Newsroom is a growing network of state-based news outlets focused on connecting people to the state policies that shape their daily lives. In many state capitals, too many stories go underreported or unreported. We are changing that, by increasing government coverage and sharing all of our reporting with readers and other news organizations for free.

What you will do

• Maintain WordPress-based sites reliably, and implement approved changes in a timely manner
• Actively manage server security and maintenance for all States Newsroom WordPress properties 
• Troubleshoot higher-level technical issues for the network as a member of a small staff-support team
• Provide occasional RSS support to States Newsroom network partners
• Maintain and expand functionality of custom WordPress plugins and themes
• Troubleshoot WordPress issues
• Support journalists in day-to-day publishing operation
• Produce code fixes and updates
• Participate in planning and estimating
• Produce solutions as a part of a team

Who you are

You are someone who believes that journalism is essential to democracy and a more equitable future. You take on new opportunities and tough challenges with energy and enthusiasm. You build partnerships and work collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives. You are able to clearly communicate technical ideas to colleagues with varying levels of proficiency.

Our ideal candidate has 3-5 years of experience in the following:

• Working experience of WordPress:
• Setup and installation
• Configuring and updating plugins
• Troubleshooting issues and finding solutions or workarounds
• Familiarity with PHP/HTML/JS/CSS stack:
• Familiarity with HTML5+
• Ability to reason about layout issues
• Familiarity with CSS3+: precedence order, selector specificity, grid, flexbox,...
• Familiarity with both legacy and ES6+ JavaScript
• Familiarity with both legacy and PHP8+
• Familiarity with best security practices:
• OWASP and beyond
• Comfortable with multiple Operating Systems:
• Windows and macOS preferred
• Familiarity with Linux/UNIX
• Experience using command line/TUI
• Ability to troubleshoot basic OS-level issues
• Ability to communicate technical issues to non-technical audience
• Ability to recognize hard technical issues and escalate them to the rest of the team
• Organized / self-driven fast learner

Other desired proficiencies include:

• Experience with Version Control Systems: Git preferred, though experience with any is great
• Familiarity with different programming languages and paradigms (Imperative vs Declarative approach, OOP vs FP, Abstractions, Factories, Dependency Injection, etc.)
• Experience with *NIX shell scripting and task automation
• Experience with Test Driven Development / code-testing in general
• Familiarity with front-end testing
• Familiarity with DevOps and Infrastructure-as-Code
• Experience setting up CI/CD pipelines
• Google Analytics and Ads as it relates to campaigns and paid acquisition, including tag manager, data studio, and search console; LookerStudio

This position can be based in our offices in Chapel Hill, NC, or Washington, DC, or fully remote. Authorization to work in the United States is required. All States Newsroom employees are required to be fully vaccinated within 30 days of hire.

The salary for this position is $100,000. Our generous benefits package includes:

• Premium-free platinum healthcare for employees and their families (i.e., nothing comes out of your paycheck!)
• 4 weeks of vacation per year
• 2 weeks of personal leave per year
• 20 hours of paid volunteer time per year
• 7 holidays and 4 floating holidays
• $75 monthly cell phone reimbursement
• $200 cell phone replacement benefit every two years
• $75 monthly fitness benefit
• 401K with up to 3% match
• 12 weeks of parental leave
• Full-service EAP

New laptop and any necessary equipment will be provided by States Newsroom.

States Newsroom is dedicated to producing journalism at all levels — from quick hit to investigative — but not at the expense of burning out its employees. We are supportive, exciting, welcoming and positive. We believe in creating sustainable careers for journalists on the crucial state government beat.

States Newsroom’s mission is to connect people to the power that shapes their daily lives through relentless reporting and incisive commentary on state government and policy. Journalism is a powerful force for social change, uniquely suited to challenging systemic inequality and racism. Our goal is to build an organization that fulfills that mission.

At States Newsroom, we believe we strengthen our work and improve our insights when we incorporate the perspectives of people who come from different backgrounds and have had different experiences. We are committed to diversity and prioritize equity in all recruiting and hiring. We are always working to better represent our communities and are supported in these efforts by a network-wide Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice committee.

How to Apply

Please send a cover letter and your resume and at least 3 professional references to jobs@statesnewsroom.com. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until October 31, 2023. 

About States Newsroom

States Newsroom’s mission is to connect people to the power that shapes their daily lives through relentless reporting and incisive commentary on state government and policy.

Connections working at States Newsroom