The Washington Post
Operates paywalled journalism with Arc XP
Summer Intern - Advertising Engineering
On-site in Washington, DC; five days per week; no remote option.
About the job
- Enrolled in a degree-seeking program at time of submitting application.
- Interns are paid hourly and expected to work 35-40 hours per week.
- Internship is based out of the Washington Post's D.C. office and on-site five days a week; you must be on-site for the summer and follow in-person work policy.
- Foreign nationals can apply for internships; The Post cannot provide visa sponsorship for internships.
- All work samples must be submitted in English.
- If selected, documentation to verify U.S. work authorization must be provided.
- Building high-performance user-facing code.
- Building and maintaining reliable, secure backend services.
- Working on innovative ad technology and approaches that can directly unlock revenue for The Washington Post.
- Ensuring high standards in all engineering work.
- Collaborating effectively with teammates to ensure Advertising systems scale safely and consistently across the organization.
- Experience with modern websites, work on large language model projects focused on text analysis, and engagement with marketing and advertising technology.
- Strong frontend engineering fundamentals with experience working with APIs and both modern JavaScript frameworks and vanilla JavaScript.
- A mindset for scale and speed, meticulous attention to detail, and a strong willingness to learn.
- Demonstrated ability to write reliable, maintainable code and collaborate effectively within a team environment.
About the company
The Washington Post runs a national newspaper and earns revenue from digital subscriptions, digital advertising, and licensing its Arc XP technology. Arc XP is a cloud-based suite of tools that publishers and other businesses use to create, manage, publish, and monetize digital content across channels. It differentiates itself by combining consumer news with a growing B2B licensing business that sells Arc XP to other media companies and organizations. Its goal is to grow a global reader base, expand subscriptions, maximize digital ad revenue, and scale Arc XP as a major licensing platform for publishers and enterprises.
Company Size
1,001-5,000
Company Stage
Acquired
Total Funding
$250M
Headquarters
Washington DC, District of Columbia
Founded
1877
Get referred to The Washington Post
See people who can refer or advise you
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- RavenPack's 2026 partnership sells Post journalism into enterprise AI workflows.
- Arc XP won Editoria Italia in February 2026, proving international licensing demand.
- Matt Murray is refocusing resources on politics, national security, science, technology, and business.
What critics are saying
- February 2026 layoffs cut roughly 30% of staff and hollowed coverage depth.
- 2026 subscriber backlash after the 2024 endorsement decision still weakens retention.
- Annual losses above $100 million force more cuts and risk permanent decline.
What makes The Washington Post unique
- Arc XP gives The Washington Post a separate media-technology revenue engine.
- Bezos ownership funds hard resets, unlike most newspapers facing immediate liquidity constraints.
- National-security, politics, and investigative reporting still define the Post's premium brand.
Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?
Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
401(k) Company Match
Paid Vacation
Paid Sick Leave
Paid Holidays
Parental Leave
Mental Health Support
Pet Insurance
Professional Development Budget
Company News
RavenPack has partnered with The Washington Post to provide enterprise access to the newspaper's content through Bigdata.com, enabling companies to integrate award-winning journalism into AI applications and analytical workflows. The partnership offers real-time news coverage and select historical archives via APIs and MCP connectors. Content spans macroeconomics, business, technology, geopolitics and policy, delivered in a structured format suitable for retrieval-augmented generation, sentiment analysis and event detection. The collaboration aims to address enterprise demand for reliable, high-quality news signals to power AI applications. RavenPack CEO Armando Gonzalez emphasised that AI quality depends on information quality, whilst The Washington Post's Shawn Polk said the partnership extends the value of their journalism into enterprise use cases whilst maintaining content integrity.
Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray said the newspaper is on a trajectory to break even following mass layoffs that eliminated more than 300 journalism positions earlier this month. Speaking at Semafor's Restoring Trust in Media event, Murray defended the cuts as a necessary "strategic reset" amid declining revenue and subscriptions. Murray acknowledged the Post remains behind competitors like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal commercially, noting the business had been declining for "quite some time". The paper has lost subscribers partly due to owner Jeff Bezos' decision to pull back its endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Murray did not provide a timeline for reaching profitability but said the goal is to achieve stability, then break even, before returning to growth mode. He emphasised Bezos remains committed to the Post's long-term future.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos issued his first public statement since the paper enacted mass job cuts this week, emphasising the importance of "data" and understanding reader interests. The billionaire Amazon founder indicated he wanted to apply his customer-focused approach to the Post. "Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus," Bezos wrote. His statement came as CEO Will Lewis stepped down, to be replaced on an interim basis by CFO Jeff D'Onofrio. The messaging echoed comments from top editor Matt Murray, who told staff the Post must focus on areas where it demonstrates "authority, distinctiveness, and impact", including politics, national affairs and national security. However, critics remain sceptical following controversies over the paper's 2024 presidential endorsement and recent opinion section changes.
The Washington Post Guild has called for Jeff Bezos to sell the publication following CEO Will Lewis' departure on Saturday. The union described Lewis' exit as "long overdue", saying his legacy would be "the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution". Lewis left days after sweeping layoffs affected hundreds of reporters across sports, audio, international, books and DC metro sections. Laid-off journalists celebrated his departure on social media, with former culture writer Jada Yuan calling herself "thrilled" by the news. The union demanded Bezos immediately rescind the layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future. Unionised employees had held a "Save the Post" rally earlier this week, emphasising risks to press freedom if legacy publications like the Post cannot continue operating.
Will Lewis has resigned as publisher and CEO of the Washington Post after two years, with Chief Financial Officer Jeff D'Onofrio appointed as acting publisher. The announcement follows mass layoffs on Wednesday that cut hundreds of journalists, many covering foreign affairs. Lewis's tenure was marked by buyouts and shrinking coverage at the newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos since 2013. Employees and supporters protested outside the Post's offices on Saturday following the drastic cuts. In his first public comments since the layoffs, Bezos said readers provide "a roadmap to success" through data showing "what is valuable and where to focus". D'Onofrio previously served as CEO of Tumblr and held leadership positions at Raptive, Google, Yahoo and Major League Baseball.