The mission of The New York Times is to seek the truth and help people understand the world. That means independent journalism is at the heart of all we do as a company. It’s why we have a world-renowned newsroom that sends journalists to report on the ground from nearly 160 countries. It’s why we focus deeply on how our readers will experience our journalism, from print to audio to a world-class digital and app destination. And it’s why our business strategy centers on making journalism so good that it’s worth paying for.

About the Role, Mission or Department Overview

This is an important moment in the life of The New York Times. We have declared ourselves a subscription-first company, staking our future on producing journalism that is worth paying for and is unparalleled in its quality, depth and breadth of coverage. Connecting our expanding readership to our quality journalism is one of our most important and exciting challenges as we move toward reaching our long-term subscription goals.

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to join the Community team and help build reliable, scalable services that power commenting, moderation and reader engagement experiences across The New York Times. You will work closely with product, design, data, mobile, and web engineers. Together, you will design and operate cloud-based systems that are secure, observable, and easy to evolve over time. Your primary tools will be Go on Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services.

At The New York Times Company, building an experienced and diverse workforce is an important part of our mission. We are committed to a hiring process that is inclusive, fair and transparent, and one that puts emphasis on our commitment to career development. Our teams are collaborative and value inclusion, diversity and personal growth.

You show:

Belief in our mission: You have experience with the news and for making The New York Times an indispensable daily destination for our readers.
Technical competency: You have knowledge of backend systems, APIs, and cloud infrastructure, and keep up to date on changes in backend frameworks, languages and the broader developer community.
Code cleanliness: You understand what makes code well structured, maintainable and flexible, and you aim to create a culture where quality code is valued.
User focus: You care about how design, engineering and product decisions contribute to a seamless, engaging and enjoyable user experience for readers and internal users.

Responsibilities:

Design backend services and APIs that power web and mobile experiences, with an emphasis on performance, reliability and security.
Lead architectural discussions and contribute to technical roadmaps, breaking down complex projects into well-scoped, deliverable milestones.
Oversee services running in public cloud environments (such as Google Cloud Platform or Amazon Web Services), including deployment, scaling, monitoring and incident response.
Collaborate with Developer Platform, SRE and partner teams to adopt shared infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, observability tooling and best practices.
Improve the operability of our systems by adding instrumentation, metrics, logging and alerts, and by guiding post-incident reviews and follow-up work.
Write clear technical documentation and provide thoughtful code reviews that improve for the team.
Mentor other engineers, share knowledge, and help establish standards for backend and cloud development.
Occasionally work at the speed of news to respond to new opportunities or issues in production systems.
Demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world.
This role reports to the ((INSERT title of the Hiring Manager))

Basic Qualifications:

Have 5+ years of experience building and maintaining backend services in a production environment.
Have proficiency in one or more backend languages (for example Go or Node.js/TypeScript) and familiarity with common application frameworks.
Have experience designing and implementing HTTP/REST or GraphQL APIs, and message queue or event-driven systems.
Have hands-on experience with public cloud platform services such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or Amazon Web Services (AWS), including managed databases, networking, and storage.
Be comfortable working with containerization and orchestration technologies (e.g., Docker and Kubernetes) and infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g., Terraform, Cloud Deployment Manager or CloudFormation).
Demonstrate proficiency with CI/CD tooling, automated testing, feature flag deployments, observability and monitoring.
Have experience with one or more data stores (such as PostgreSQL, MySQL or other relational databases, and-value or document stores).
Experience communicating updates and resolutions to customers and other partners with all partners, and can explain tradeoffs and constraints in terms that align with our goals.

Preferred Qualifications:

Work in a team with product, design, data and other engineering groups.
Contribute to system design and architecture across multiple services or domains.
Help shape team processes, documentation and norms that support a healthy, inclusive engineering culture.

#LI-Hybrid

REQ-020165

The annual base pay range for this role is between:

$140,000—$160,000 USD

For roles in the U.S., dependent on your role, you may be eligible for variable pay, such as an annual bonus and restricted stock. Benefits may include medical, dental and vision benefits, Flexible Spending Accounts (F.S.A.s), a company-matching 401(k) plan, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and professional development programs.

For roles outside of the U.S., information on benefits will be provided during the interview process.

The New York Times Company is committed to being the world’s best source of independent, reliable and quality journalism. To do so, we embrace a diverse workforce that has a broad range of backgrounds and experiences across our ranks, at all levels of the organization. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate on the basis of an individual's sex, age, race, color, creed, national origin, alienage, religion, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation or affectional preference, gender identity and expression, disability, genetic trait or predisposition, carrier status, citizenship, veteran or military status and other personal characteristics protected by law. All applications will receive consideration for employment without regard to legally protected characteristics. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)’s Know Your Rights Poster is available here.

The New York Times Company will provide reasonable accommodations as required by applicable federal, state, and/or local laws. Individuals seeking an accommodation for the application or interview process should email [email protected]. Emails sent for unrelated issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

The Company encourages those with criminal histories to apply, and will consider their applications in a manner consistent with applicable "Fair Chance" laws, including but not limited to the NYC Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act.

For information about The New York Times' privacy practices for job applicants click here.

Please beware of fraudulent job postings. Scammers may post fraudulent job opportunities, and they may even make fraudulent employment offers. This is done by bad actors to collect personal information and money from victims. All legitimate job opportunities from The New York Times will be accessible through The New York Times careers site.

Senior Software Engineer, Community

Want to see the full job description?

Job details

The New York Times