Product Engineer, Membership and Front-End

ProPublica • New York City, NY

6d • Hybrid

About The Position

ProPublica is hiring a software engineer to work primarily on the systems and services that power its audience data platforms. The role advances ProPublica’s investigative journalism mission by building systems that improve understanding of audiences and donors. The engineer will contribute to the product road map and hands-on development, shipping high-quality, resilient code and collaborating with designers, product managers, data analysts, engineers, and agency partners. Work includes writing code, configuring no- and low-code integrations, documenting systems, sharing expertise, and proactively solving problems. The engineer will work across engineering, audience, and membership operations to align technical capabilities with organizational objectives.

The position reports to the Director of Product Engineering and works closely with the Audience Data and Insights Analyst. It focuses on reader-facing membership features, the systems and integrations behind them, audience and donor journey tracking, experimentation infrastructure, and privacy and regulatory compliance. ProPublica’s site runs on WordPress VIP.

The position is full time and includes benefits. ProPublica is based in New York and is open to remote candidates. The role has an in-office requirement of two days per week in the New York City office; that requirement may be extended to other offices with 60 days’ notice. Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. The job is covered by a collective bargaining agreement with The NewsGuild of New York, Local 31003, CWA, AFL-CIO. The expected salary range is $120,000 to $145,000, with the final figure depending on experience, accomplishments, and location.

Requirements

• At least three years of experience in front-end software development and system integrations.
• A track record of implementing and maintaining performant, secure, and scalable solutions.
• Experience interacting with audience and reader data platforms, such as Salesforce, Google Analytics, Parse.ly, Sailthru, or similar CRM, CDP, and analytics tools.
• Experience working on a customer data platform implementation within the last two years.
• Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.
• Experience working collaboratively with diverse stakeholders and adapting solutions to evolving business needs.
• Clear spoken and written communication skills, including the ability to document technical processes and explain complex integration workflows to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Ability to travel for occasional staff summits or other required events.
• Eligibility to work in the U.S.

Nice To Haves

• Prior experience implementing solutions such as Piano or MonetizationOS, or building similar functionality.
• Working knowledge of WordPress and/or WordPress VIP.
• Fluency in at least one web development language, such as PHP, TypeScript, or vanilla JavaScript.
• Hands-on experience with cloud data warehouses such as Google BigQuery and customer data platforms such as Braze or Hightouch.
• Knowledge of newsroom workflows and a passion for journalism.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship reader-facing membership features, including calls to action, donation flows, and account and authentication experiences, using clean, resilient code.
• Integrate messaging tools, payment and donation processing platforms, user accounts, customer data platforms, customer relationship management systems, and supporting data infrastructure.
• Instrument the audience and donor journey by setting up accurate, actionable event tracking.
• Build infrastructure for A/B testing and run experiments with internal business teams.
• Develop front-end services and integrations as needed.
• Work with engineering leaders to protect reader privacy and meet legal and regulatory requirements.
• Collaborate with designers, product managers, data analysts, engineers, agency partners, and colleagues across engineering, audience, and membership operations.
• Contribute to documentation, share expertise, and proactively solve problems.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed