Senior data developer

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news organization that is recognized as a leader in self-supporting journalism. We are seeking a senior data developer who will work full-time out of our downtown Austin newsroom to build news tools and tell visual stories with political data.

This position is in the Tribune's award-winning data visuals department, a hybrid news applications and graphics team. We are journalists who work closely with reporters and editors to generate ideas, request public records and find meaning in the results. Then, we use what we find to tell data-driven, visual stories.

About the job:
We are looking for an experienced journalist/developer to take ownership of a new Texas political data beat. Here's what that beat will entail:

• This person will help the Tribune publish the most comprehensive and useful real-time election results in Texas. Our current elections data workflow is built in Django, Node, and React, but you can make it your own.

• That election data doesn't disappear after the big night — it feeds an API which powers our elected officials directory. This person can optimize that process, and work with our in-house engineering team to find more ways to incorporate elected officials' data into stories.
• This person should have ideas about how use code to gather, analyze, and publish federal and state campaign finance data.
• Once the politicians are in office, this person will find creative ways to use data to cover Texas' congressional delegation and biennial legislative session, with a focus on redistricting.

About you:
We're open to applications from those who build news applications, do data analysis and use journalistic techniques we haven't thought of yet. This person will be the technical lead on our team. Here are some general skills we're looking for:

• You want to use code to build new platforms and tools that help both reporters and readers better understand and explore large data sets.
• You want to work on a small, nimble and experienced team with space to do creative work. You're equally comfortable working alone and sharing your skills with others.
• You approach problems with a combination of coding smarts and journalistic rigor.
• You have experience building both front- and back-end workflows using tools such as Python/Django and have a good barometer for judging when a story needs a big lift, or could benefit from simplicity.
• You’re familiar with modern HTML and CSS, JavaScript, and are comfortable with (or willing to learn!) higher-level tools like Node, Sass and Nunjucks, and JavaScript frameworks like React/Preact.

We know there are great people who won’t check all of these boxes,  and we also know you might bring other important skills and ideas to the team. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. Please reach out to Data Visuals Editor Darla Cameron at dcameron (at) texastribune.org with any questions.

See the full posting and learn more about the Tribune here.