Senior 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 highly skilled and experienced Senior Software Engineer to lead our core platform technologies. You will be instrumental in migrating legacy systems to modern, cloud-native architectures, designing and implementing highly scalable and testable backend services (with a particular focus on geolocation capabilities), and contributing to the backend infrastructure to support our AI-powered experiences. This role requires deep technical expertise, a passion for quality code, and strong experience with TypeScript and Terraform in a cloud environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and execution of strategies for migrating legacy software services to modern microservices or serverless architectures.
• Architect, build, test, and deploy scalable and testable backend services and APIs using TypeScript and Node.js.
• Take ownership of the design and implementation of core geolocation service features, ensuring high performance and reliability.
• Write maintainable, well-documented, and testable code, adhering to best practices.
• Develop and manage cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles, primarily with Terraform on AWS.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, data scientists, and fellow engineers to translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Lead the development lifecycle of AI-powered experiences around media content, building machine learning pipelines and backend APIs.
• Champion best practices in software engineering, including automated testing, CI/CD, monitoring, and code reviews.
• Diagnose and resolve complex technical challenges across the stack.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers, promoting technical growth within the team.
• Stay abreast of new technologies and advocate for their adoption where appropriate.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong focus on backend development.  
• Demonstrable experience leading or significantly contributing to legacy system migration projects.
• Expert-level proficiency in the Node/TypeScript ecosystem.
• Significant hands-on experience building and managing cloud infrastructure using Terraform.
• Proven ability to design and implement scalable, distributed systems and RESTful/GraphQL APIs.
• Experience with various database technologies (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Redis).
• Strong foundation in computer science principles (data structures, algorithms, system design).
• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to work independently and collaboratively.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills.  

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience developing geolocation services (e.g., using PostGIS, geospatial indexing, map APIs).
• Experience with various testing frameworks (e.g., Jest, Cypress, Playwright).
• Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Experience working with machine learning pipelines (Python experience is a plus).
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures (e.g., SNS, SQS, RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ).
• Experience 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 $150,000 - $190,000. 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.