Software Engineer

About Hearst Newspapers

With more than 3,000 employees across the nation, Hearst Newspapers publishes 24 dailies and 52 weeklies, including the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, Albany Times Union, and CT Insider. 

It is our singular mission to be the most trusted, most respected and most accurate source of news and information in the Hearst Newspapers communities that we serve.

We place our readers' interests above all others, and dedicate ourselves to the principles of truthfulness, fairness and independence. We understand that the free flow of accurate information is vital to our system of government and the foundations of our economy.

About the Product Development Team

The Hearst Newspapers Product Development team builds exceptional product experiences that balance editorial, business, and end user considerations in service of our mission. Our team includes engineers, QA, product managers, UX researchers, designers, and product operations specialists. We are organized into cross-functional pods supporting end users, internal users, and revenue goals.  We work collaboratively and diligently.  We are creative and disciplined.  We are respectful, fun, and supportive of one another.

The Platform Engineering team exists to architect, build, and maintain scalable technology platforms that power and enrich end-user experiences for the millions of people that engage with our products every day. 

About the Role

We are seeking a talented and motivated Software Engineer to join our core platform engineering team. In this role, you will contribute significantly to modernizing our existing platforms, designing and implementing scalable backend services (including geolocation features), and supporting the development of our AI-powered experiences. You will utilize your skills in modern technologies like TypeScript and Terraform to build robust, testable, and maintainable solutions on our cloud infrastructure, working alongside and learning from senior engineers.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the design and development efforts for migrating legacy software components to modern microservices or serverless architectures.
• Design, build, test, and deploy scalable backend services using TypeScript and Node.js, with opportunities to work on geolocation features.
• Write maintainable, well-documented, and testable code, adhering to team standards and best practices.
• Develop and maintain cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles, primarily with Terraform on AWS, under the guidance of senior team members.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, data scientists, and other engineers to understand requirements and implement technical solutions.
• Support the development lifecycle of AI-powered experiences around media content, building machine learning pipelines and backend APIs.
• Adhere to and promote best practices in software engineering, including automated testing, CI/CD, monitoring, and participating actively in code reviews.
• Troubleshoot and resolve technical issues in development and production environments with support from the team.
• Collaborate with and learn from senior engineers, contributing to a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.
• Stay current with emerging technologies relevant to your work.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.  
• 2-5 years of professional software engineering experience, with exposure to backend development.
• Proficiency in the Node/TypeScript ecosystem.
• Experience using Terraform for cloud infrastructure management.
• Experience developing backend services and RESTful/GraphQL APIs.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms, such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Experience with relational (e.g., PostgreSQL) or NoSQL (e.g., MongoDB) databases.
• Good understanding of software engineering principles (data structures, algorithms, system design).
• Good problem-solving skills and a willingness to learn.
• Effective communication and collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience specifically developing or working with geolocation services.
• Experience participating in or contributing to legacy system migration projects.
• Experience with various testing frameworks (e.g., Jest, Cypress, Playwright).
• Experience with containerization (Docker) and/or orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Exposure to working with machine learning pipelines (Python experience is a plus).
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures (e.g., SNS, SQS, RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ).
• Familiarity with setting up and using monitoring/observability tools (e.g., Datadog, New Relic, Splunk).

In accordance with applicable law, Hearst is required to include a reasonable estimate of the compensation for this role if hired in New York.  The reasonable estimate, if hired in New York, is $120,000 - $160,000. Please note this information is specific to those hired in New York.  If this role is open to candidates outside of New York, the salary range would be aligned to that specific location.  A final decision on the successful candidate’s starting salary will be based on a number of permissible, non-discriminatory factors, including but not limited to skills and experience, training, certifications, and education.