Principal Data Engineer

Hearst Newspapers (HNP) is a leading media organization that powers the next generation of consumer news products. As part of Hearst Corporation, one of America's largest diversified media companies, HNP employs over 2,500 professionals across more than 75 brands in a national network. 

While HNP's reach is national, its focus is local. The company is committed to being the most trusted, respected, and accurate source of news and information in the communities it serves. HNP's comprehensive portfolio includes innovative digital products, data-driven journalism, and specialized businesses such as King Features Syndicate, Hearst DevHub, and StoryStudio.

The company is investing heavily in digital experiences, data engineering, and machine learning to power next-generation news products while maintaining its core commitment to high-quality journalism that informs and connects communities across the country.

The Role

HNP is looking for a sharp, curious, and highly skilled data engineer to come on as principal and help power the next generation of consumer news products. If you’re passionate about data and the idea of building the future of digital journalism, this is your chance to make an outsized impact. 

As a Principal Data Engineer, you will:

• Architect and build data pipelines for production ML and real-time applications (think graph-based recommendation engines, real-time customer scoring, and classification models for customer segmentation).
• Design and implement high-volume data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration solutions leveraging Python, SQL, DBT, Airflow on GCP.
• Drive the adoption of data processing using tools like Spark, Daft, Bedrock, Pub/Sub, Flink, or similar.
• Partner with data scientists to productionize ML pipelines, packaging, deploying, and monitoring models.
• Build and maintain data pipelines to power data products and reporting tools. 
• Collaborate closely with two other data engineers, as well as the BI, product, and backend engineering teams, while reporting and serving as a thought partner to the VP of Data.

What You’ll Do

1. End-to-End Pipeline Ownership
   Own the architectural design, development, and maintenance of data pipelines.
2. Architect for Scale and Reliability
   Design data solutions with an emphasis on high availability, low latency, and scalability. We build systems that can handle large-scale data for consumer and advertising use cases.
3. Collaboration and Communication
   Work with cross-functional stakeholders including BI, product management, and backend engineering. Proactively surface issues and drive solutions, rather than waiting for direction.
4. Innovation
   Identify and implement new tools that improve efficiency, reliability, and performance across our data stack.

Qualifications

• 6–10 years of professional data engineering experience, with a track record of building production-grade pipelines and real-time data applications.
• Proficiency in Python and SQL, with proven experience with DBT, Airflow, and cloud data platforms (GCP preferred, AWS or Azure a plus).
• Deep understanding of data modeling, ELT/ETL frameworks, and streaming solutions (e.g., Spark, Daft, Flink, Pub/Sub, Kafka, etc.).
• Experience designing and optimizing complex data architectures, including ML pipelines and near-real-time analytics solutions, as well as super high volume reporting applications.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, outcome-oriented environment where you’ll tackle complex problems and get your hands dirty.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to mentor other engineers while also collaborating effectively with non-technical stakeholders.
• Familiarity with consumer products and/or advertising data models is a plus, but we prioritize skills over background.

Why Join Us

• Impact & Ownership: You’ll shape our company’s data roadmap and have tangible influence on mission-critical products.
• Collaborative Culture: We value teamwork and constant learning, no one is above the details.
• Hybrid Work Environment: Enjoy the flexibility of working from home while still connecting in-person with a NYC-based team.
• Growth Opportunities: We invest in our talent and encourage continuous professional development.

If you’re ready to get your hands dirty and bring cutting-edge solutions to life, we’d love to hear from you. Apply today to join our dynamic environment in NYC!