Job Description
Title: News Apps Developer
Location: New York, New York, United States
ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.
ProPublica is looking for a journalist to join our award-winning news applications team.
News apps developers at ProPublica are journalists who imagine, report out, design and develop interactive databases and stories, like our database of financial disclosures from Supreme Court justices, our interactive analysis of water use in Las Vegas, our timeline of videos from the attack on the Capitol or our continually updated database of nonprofit financial data.
What You’ll Do Here:
- Pitch, design and develop interactive stories and databases that hold the powerful accountable and have real-world impact.
- Wrangle data, including FOIAing for it, scraping it, cleaning it, analyzing it and preparing it for publication.
- Interview people and examine data to find trends, patterns and outliers.
- Collaborate with journalists in the wider newsroom on ambitious interactive projects.
- Work with the best news nerds on the planet on some of the biggest and most innovative projects in investigative and data journalism.
About You
In general, we look for people who have proven that they can use technical skills for journalistic ends. The ideal candidate will have many of these qualifications:
- At least three years of experience designing and developing polished interactive graphics or databases from scratch.
- Journalism experience, either at the local or national level, especially involving stories that shed light on injustices or that cover marginalized communities.
- Fluency in web development, including HTML/CSS and Javascript, and the libraries that go with it, like D3.js and Svelte.
- An understanding of good design principles and how to design for clarity and impact.
- A desire to learn (or experience in) how to provide coaching, guidance and project feedback to colleagues to elevate designs and projects.
- Special expertise in one aspect of interactive journalism, such as cartography, quantitative methods, user testing, public records, subject matter expertise, etc.
- Experience with data, whether it’s collecting hard-to-get public data off the internet or cleaning and analyzing data in your tool of choice, such as Python, SQL or R.
- Ability to work on several projects at once. You’ll need to stay organized and focused.
- The self-discipline to work independently, as well as an eagerness to work with teammates on collaborative projects.
- A love for details and making things.