Director, Product Engineering

ProPublica•New York, NY

11d•$170,000 - $180,000•Remote

About The Position

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.

Requirements

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.

Nice To Haves

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.

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.