Engineering Manager, Platform

Associated Press•New York, NY

5d•$123,000 - $170,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Associated Press is seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to lead the development and evolution of the platform powering AP’s consumer-facing products. This is a hands-on, player-coach role responsible for building editorial products, backend services, and APIs that support both product and editorial needs. The role involves leading a small, distributed team of engineers and owning the evolution of the AP News CMS, including building new editorial products, integrating third-party tools, and exposing reliable APIs and data for web and native mobile applications. Additionally, the manager will build and operate platform services and infrastructure, collaborating with application engineering teams, operations and incident response partners, security stakeholders, and external vendors to ensure reliable, high-performance delivery at scale. This position is crucial for enabling product velocity while maintaining the stability and integrity of AP’s consumer platforms.

Requirements

6+ years of experience building and operating backend or platform systems, including experience in a technical leadership or engineering management role.
Demonstrated success operating as a player-coach, balancing hands-on development with team leadership and delivery accountability.
Hands-on experience developing and extending CMS platforms.
Experience designing and operating API-driven systems and integrations.
Experience building and operating APIs and services that support multiple client surfaces.
Strong experience optimizing backend performance and diagnosing production issues in high-traffic environments.
Working knowledge of observability and monitoring practices used to diagnose complex platform issues.
Experience partnering with operations and incident response teams, including participating in production incident triage and follow-through.
Experience managing distributed teams and external vendors across multiple time zones.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to perform root cause analysis and drive practical solutions.
Strong communicator with experience partnering closely with Product, Client Engineering, Editorial, QA, Security, and Operations stakeholders.
Experience working in agile development environments and leading cross-functional teams.
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in computer science or a related field (or equivalent experience).

Nice To Haves

Brightspot experience is a plus.
Familiarity with GraphQL and contract/versioning discipline is a strong plus.
Familiarity with monetization systems (advertising and/or consumer pay) and first-party identity/data concepts is a plus.

Responsibilities

Architect scalable solutions to support high-traffic consumer environments.
Manage and mentor an agile team of platform engineers, including distributed vendor partners.
Design, implement, and maintain APIs, services, and integrations that support consumer products and editorial workflows.
Develop and extend CMS to support evolving product and editorial workflows, templates, and publishing experiences.
Build and operate backend services that support AP’s consumer products, including shared services, integrations, data flows, and operational tooling not covered by managed services.
Own API and data contracts, including schema governance (GraphQL where applicable), to ensure backward-compatible change and reliable client integrations across web and native mobile apps.
Lead backend performance optimization efforts (latency, throughput, caching, scalability) to improve end-user experience.
Partner with AP’s Operations Command Center (OCC) and other stakeholders to support incident response, root cause analysis, and post-incident follow-through for owned services and infrastructure.
Collaborate closely with product engineering to ensure platform capabilities and delivery timelines support product goals.
Work closely with Product, Editorial, QA, Operations, Security, and Revenue partners to align platform execution with business and editorial objectives.
Ensure platform changes meet security, privacy, and compliance requirements; partner with centralized Security teams on standards and remediation.
Leverage analytics and operational insights to inform platform prioritization and long-term technical strategy.
Engage with vendors and third-party services as needed, establishing clear ownership and predictable delivery.