Description

The Texas Tribune, the state’s go-to source for Texas politics and public policy news, is hiring a Senior Data Visuals Developer to build data tools to empower Texans and help them understand where they fit within the state's complicated political landscape. This position is part of the Tribune's award-winning data visuals department, an experimental R&D storytelling team living between product and editorial.

This person will report to the Data Visuals Editor and can be based anywhere in Texas. The Tribune is headquartered in Austin, and we have journalists in cities across the state. The Senior Data Visuals Developer’s primary focus will be our statewide newsroom, with occasional collaborations with our new local newsrooms in Waco and Austin.

The salary for this position is $95,000.

Responsibilities

• You will use data to create personalized tools designed to make the political process clear and accessible to Texans.
• This includes a suite of tools to help Texans navigate the electoral process, including accessible ballot pages, voter guides, real-time election results and an elected officials directory. These tools are built using Django, Node, React and D3.
• After the elections, you will also help analyze the results to help Texans understand what happened.
• Each election cycle, our coverage gets more visually ambitious. We are looking for someone with new ideas on how we can continue to serve our audience well.
• You will be in charge of maintaining the Django API that powers our election tools and optimizing this process in collaboration with our in-house engineering team.
• We’re looking for someone who is future-minded and eager to experiment with how and where we publish election information, including with AI.
• You will become a Texas campaign finance expert and help produce impactful reporting on powerful politicians and donors. We have an internal Django app that helps gather state campaign finance data, and we are open to ideas for how we can make this tool more useful for our reporters.
• You will find creative ways to use data to cover Texas’ congressional delegation and biennial legislative sessions. While you will be primarily focused on political data, you will have opportunities to report on other topics such as immigration enforcement, unreported hate crimes, and Texas’ affordable housing and water crises.
• You are eager to help the organization strategize about how to provide information on local elections for our audiences in Austin and Waco.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and 8+ years of relevant experience OR equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
• Experience building and maintaining back-end and API workflows using tools such as Django
• Familiarity with JavaScript frameworks like React or Preact,  charting libraries like D3 and other front-end tools in NPM
• Experience with basic spreadsheet tools and running data analysis using tools such as Python, SQL or R
• Experience creating clear and concise data visualizations and the journalistic skills to evaluate when a story needs a big lift or could benefit from simplicity
• As a senior staff member, you’ll show an interest in leadership and be comfortable representing the data visuals team in editorial and product meetings when needed.
• Experience or desire to experiment with  AI tools, both internally to help streamline workflows and externally to help us reach and serve more Texans.
• When using AI, we value rigorous experimentation, high ethical and privacy standards, and cautious publishing and distribution.
• A collaborative spirit and the ability to work with rigor while knowing that you are still learning and growing. (The data visuals team mascot is the capybara in a yuzu bath because we are pretty chill.)
• Visual design skills are a plus, but not required. However, the ability to collaborate is required — you’ll frequently partner with Tribune product designers on and off the data visuals team

We know some great candidates won’t check all of these boxes, and we also know you might bring important skills that we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.

Location

The Texas Tribune office is located in downtown Austin, steps away from the Texas Capitol. This position is based in Austin, but we will consider candidates who are based elsewhere in Texas and can travel occasionally to our Austin office. 

Benefits

This job is full-time and has the following benefits:

• Medical, vision and dental insurance
• Monthly cellphone stipend
• 20 days of paid time off each year
• 12 paid holidays
• Up to 16 weeks of paid family leave, plus four weeks of additional job protection
• Annual 401(k) match
• Support for professional training and career development
• Remote working flexibility

How to apply

Submit your application here by March 1, with 

• a resume, 
• a cover letter detailing your vision for this position and how you would approach the work, and
• up to three samples of projects you’ve played a role in creating or maintaining. Bonus points for clips that include political data. If you have fewer than three examples to share, that’s okay! We want to see the best representation of your abilities and why you’re proud of the work.

The Texas Tribune is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We encourage applicants of all identities, backgrounds, ages, and abilities to apply. We can't wait to hear from you.

About The Texas Tribune

Here’s what you should know about the Tribune. From day one, we’ve had disruption, innovation and risk-taking in our DNA. We’re ambitious as all get out but still have the punch-above-your-weight mentality of a scrappy start-up. We believe we can meet the demands of our audience and our own expectations for excellence without breaking the bank — or our staff. We understand not everything is a story for us — we have to make choices — but we’re always looking to expand our boundaries. 

We’re nonprofit because the challenging economic reality for media these days obligates us to find a different way, reliable and sustainable, to fund serious journalism. We’re nonpartisan because we live in the United States of Confirmation Bias — and we don’t need to be part of the problem. We don’t need to be yet another source of information affirming the voices and perspectives that are already in people’s heads. At the same time, nonpartisan is not non-thinking. We call B.S. when B.S. needs to be called.

The Texas Tribune seeks to ensure that its newsroom and its news coverage reflect Texas by including a wide range of perspectives from people of different backgrounds, ideologies and experiences.

Learn more about The Texas Tribune here.