Archive for the ‘Jobs’ Category
We’re hiring a senior Python developer!
Do you consider yourself a fan of Python? Are you passionate about reporting in Chicago? Have you ever had long discussions about documentation? Then you might be right for TribGraphics. Check out the job posting here and apply soon!
We want our newsroom to look more like the city that we serve. If you’re a person from a group that’s underrepresented in engineering or journalism, we really want to see your application!
We’re hiring: Team Leader Extraordinaire
We’re looking for a new director—a creative thinker with solid management experience and a passion for digital journalism. In this role, you’ll manage a team of agile developers and partner with editors across Tribune Publishing (our publications include the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel and many others).
You will work with the team in Chicago and collaborators in newsrooms across the country to identify needs and opportunities, provide technical guidance and recommendations, shepherd special projects and facilitate clear communication between stakeholders.
You will problem-solve. You will prioritize. You will insist on transparency in our processes. You will ruthlessly simplify to provide our audience with useful, compelling content. You will show your work. You will work with brilliant, wonderful developers, reporters, photographers, designers and editors.
Your qualifications:
- Experience in digital media, data journalism or a related field
- Experience in digital product development
- Computer science and/or journalism background preferred (you don’t need to be a developer, but you need to work well with developers)
- Project management, negotiation and analytical skills
- A deep understanding and commitment to open source
- Passion for the news
- Curiosity and enthusiasm about exploring new storytelling formats
How to get the interview
Say you’re interested in an internship with the Chicago Tribune News Applications team (or, really, anywhere). You see our post on the Tribune Media Group jobs site, or right here on this blog. You respond. We don’t call you in for an interview.
“What went wrong?” you wonder.
Well, any number of things. Maybe nothing. Maybe we just didn’t think you were a good fit.
“But I would have been a great fit!” you wail to the heavens. You shake your fists and rend your garments. And then you ponder, “What could I have done differently that would have at least merited an interview?”
Okay, dry your eyes, get a drink of water, and prepare for some advice. I’ve been handling the annual Search for the Summer Intern for three years and I have thoughts.
First, though, you should know one thing: I want you to have the best possible shot at this (or any other) internship.
I’m not looking to arbitrarily disqualify candidates. I hope that we have more qualified applicants than we can handle—from a totally selfish perspective, options are great! Therefore I have provided the following list of the Five Most Important Things to Do on Your Internship Application:
1. FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS
Excuse the shouting, but this one piece of advice could stand in for the entire list if necessary. If you neglect to follow instructions in the application process, it seems like you either don’t care enough to pay attention to directions or don’t think the directions apply to you. Either option is a bad message to send.
If, for example, the instructions say (perhaps even in three separate places…) to include a cover letter, you should include a cover letter. If you choose to skip that step, I will choose to skip reading your resume. By not even meeting the basic requirements of the application, you’ve wasted your own time and that of a lovely gentleman in HR—and the only reason you’re not wasting my time as well is that I eventually asked said gentleman to not bother forwarding me any applications missing cover letters.
2. Demonstrate understanding of the role, relevance, and interest
No, the job description probably won’t spell out every duty the internship encompasses, but you should at least be able to figure out what the role broadly entails…and only apply if it’s something you want to do.
Sometimes your experience doesn’t seem like an obvious fit for the role you’re hoping to fill. That ostensible mismatch doesn’t automatically disqualify you from consideration, provided you explain why you’re interested in and think you would be a good fit for the internship. If your resume says you’re in culinary school and your cover letter is a generic copy-and-paste job, I won’t assume you’re learning to code on weekends and are an avid hackathon participant. But maybe you are! Make it explicit.
3. Pay attention to details
One typo isn’t going to disqualify you, even with someone as nitpicky as I am. But if your entire application is riddled with typos? Not good. If your cover letter is obviously copied and pasted and I can see where you’ve forgotten to change some of the relevant details? Also not good. If you get the name of the company or team wrong? Pretty bad. And I would always prefer “Dear News Apps Team” or the old standby, “To Whom It May Concern” over entirely the wrong name. If you’re not sure, don’t just guess.
All of the above come across as sloppy and lazy—you didn’t pay attention the first time and you didn’t look over your work before sending. Those are not traits we want in an intern, particularly one whose role will entail committing code to a live site.
4. Don’t squander opportunities
If for any reason one of my teammates or I do contact you (perhaps a colleague recommended you, or I have reason to suspect some form of technology botched your cover letter), make the most of the opportunity. Theoretically, we’re reaching out because we’re interested in you or want to give you a chance to explain or elaborate. If you’re really interested in the internship, this is the time to put in a little extra effort, not just copy and paste your generic cover letter, typos and all.
5. Follow the directions already!
Yes, it’s *that* important.
It’s that time of year again…internship time!
The Chicago Tribune News Apps team has been lucky enough to have had some of the world’s greatest summer interns. Are you next?
We’re looking for a sharp, self-motivated college or graduate student to spend the summer working with the News Apps team, where you’ll help us gather and visualize data in a meaningful way and build useful, user-friendly web applications (some of which you can see here). As part of our team, you’ll write code on Monday that could be live on Wednesday. It’ll be great for the resume, not to mention your own sense of satisfaction.
You
This position is based in Chicago and is open to college juniors, seniors and graduate students with programming experience. Ideal candidates will have some journalism in their background.
Company-wide internship requirements stipulate that only individuals who are currently enrolled in college or graduate school are eligible for the program. Sorry, non-student folks!
Details and compensation
The Tribune’s 12-week paid internship program is part-time, 20-24 hours a week. (And we’re not evil taskmasters–we can be flexible with scheduling, as long as we work it out in advance.) You’re absolutely welcome to apply if you’re not local to Chicago, but you’ll need to find your own accommodations.
Applying
To apply, email newsapps@tribune.com, and tell us why you’d like to spend your summer with us. Include your preferred start date and some type of resume-like rundown of your abilities and experience. Bonus points will be given to applicants with neat skills and/or a project or two in mind.
For a more thorough list of requirements and responsibilities, check out the official Tribune internship posting. You’ll have to fill that out eventually, but go ahead and email us first.
Who needs a summer vacation? Intern with the News Apps team!
We’re looking for a sharp, self-motivated college or graduate student to spend the summer working with the News Apps team, where you’ll help us gather and visualize data in a meaningful way and build useful, user-friendly web applications (some of which you can see here). As part of our team, you’ll write code on Monday that could be live on Wednesday, participate in college football picks 2014, the whole team experience. It’ll be great for the resume, not to mention your own sense of satisfaction.
You
This position is open to college juniors, seniors and graduate students with programming experience. Ideal candidates will have some journalism in their background which we can mold into a potential career.
Details and compensation
The Tribune’s 12-week internship program is part time, 20-24 hours a week, and pay is $10 hourly. (And we’re not evil taskmasters—we can be flexible with scheduling, as long as we work it out in advance.) You’re absolutely welcome to apply if you’re not local, but you’ll need to find your own accommodations.
Applying
To apply, email newsapps@tribune.com, and tell us why you’d like to waste a perfectly good summer working at a newspaper. Include your preferred start date and some type of resume-like rundown of your abilities and experience. Bonus points will be given to applicants with neat skills and/or a project or two in mind.
For a more thorough list of requirements and responsibilities, check out the official Tribune internship posting. You’ll have to fill that out eventually, but go ahead and email us first.
ISO detail-obsessed, hyper-organized weirdo. Must love crafting.
Do you keep a grocery list?
Do you alphabetize your spices (and/or record collection)?
Do you measure your baking ingredients by weight?
Then you’re just the kind of freak we’re looking for.
The news applications team at Chicago Tribune is in search of a detail-obsessed, hyper-organized weirdo to run our projects. Project management is a hard job. You will put stickers on things. You will sort index cards. You will make the boss choose, and not take “both” as an answer.
We believe in freedom through tyranny. Agile software development is an exercise in embracing constraints to draw power from chaos. You will cut features with extreme prejudice.
If you’ve got project-management experience, that’s delightful. If not, let’s talk anyway — we will teach you the way.
Benefits include a never-ending supply of markers, yarn and pushpins. Also, if it wasn’t obvious, we like food but none of us have a binge eating disorder like this fat cat.
Anyway, please apply. Send evidence of your obsessions to newsapps@tribune.com.
It’ll be fun.
We’re hiring: WordPress, HTML5 developer extraordinaire
We are looking for an experienced web developer who can help us build sites for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Tribune Media Group. Somebody who has a passion for code and getting things done. Somebody who likes having a problem to solve.
On the News Apps team, you will help us research, design, and build online news products. You will be a generalist: sometimes interviewing or helping users, sometimes writing HTML and CSS, sometimes coding in Python, PHP or Javascript, and sometimes working on servers.
You will work with a group of talented, passionate folks who enjoy making websites and software. We have short deadlines so we work iteratively and try to work closely with our users and stakeholders. It can be stressful at times, but it’s worth it. We build good stuff fast and you will become a better programmer. You will always be refining your tools and trying out bleeding edge web technologies. You will make things you will be proud to show mom.
Acronyms and buzzwords:
These are the tools we use. Apply if you can rock them.
- WordPress & PHP development
- Git
- HTML5, CSS3, SASS and Responsive Design
- Javascript & Coffeescript: Backbone.js, Underscore.js, jQuery
- Python and Django
- Amazon Web Services: EC2, S3, RDS
- Linux/Ubuntu server administration: Apache, Nginx, Varnish
P.S. You don’t have to know them all to apply.
Stuff we’ve done:
You will be working on these sites, and new ones like them.
And you’ll be contributing to our blog and our github.
Gear you’ll get:
- One shiny, new MacBook Pro (or an iMac, if you’d prefer)
- One CDM (Cheap Dell Monitor)
- One comfy Aeron chair
- …all at a desk somewhere in the Tribune newsroom, where you’ll be surrounded by reporters arguing with the cops, yelling about the ball game, telling crazy stories, and otherwise practicing their trade.
What are you doing for democracy?
Making software in the newsroom is the best job I’ve ever had.
It’s great fun, and it’s for a purpose. We’re not here to “save journalism” (whatever that means) — we’re here to save democracy.
And we want you to join us.
Two gigs:
- Help us build the next generation of news websites (and build insane tools to bend WordPress to your will and make it fast)
- Work with reporters to hold the powerful accountable for their actions (and build insane mapping tools and show your work.)
We hope to hear from you. Email newsapps@tribune.com.
– Brian
We’re hiring: Code in the public interest, make your mother proud
Join our team!
Requirements
- A passion for the news
- Serious programming skills
- An understanding of the inner workings of the web
- Attention to detail and love for making things
- A genuine and friendly disposition
We’re in need of a great hacker. Someone passionate for learning programming languages, using the best tools for the job, and in general, getting things done. We’re generalists, and we expect you to be as well. On any given day you might implement a responsive web design w/ HTML5 + CSS3, explore a dataset with a reporter looking over your shoulder, or help make the servers swift.
Bonus points if you’ve got skills in…
- Data science
- Information design
- User experience / usability
- Maintaining high-performance web sites
- Graphic design
Allow me a moment to persuade you
The newsroom is a crucible. We work on tight schedules with hard deadlines. While this may seem stressful, it’s got a serious upside. Every couple of weeks we can learn from our mistakes and refine our technologies. It’s a fast-moving, volatile development environment that will make you a better programmer.
Also, it’s a damned good time.
Find examples of our work at Maps & Apps. To get a feel for the full news apps experience, check our team blog. (Every team member is expected to blog their findings. We believe it’s essential to show your work!)
Gear you’ll get
- One shiny, new MacBook Pro (or an iMac, if you’d prefer)
- One CDM (Cheap Dell Monitor)
- One comfy Aeron chair
- …all at a desk somewhere in the Tribune newsroom, where you’ll be surrounded by reporters arguing with the cops, yelling about the ball game, telling crazy stories, and otherwise practicing their trade.
There is no free pop, pinball or posh cafeteria, but you’ll love your work.
You’ll arrive energized, and leave satisfied that you’ve done something that will make your mom proud.
Interested? Email your info to newsapps@tribune.com. Thanks!
Show Your Work
During my first and only performance review at the Chicago Tribune, Brian asked that I take responsibility for cultivating two team assets: our testing methodology and our open source presence. With notable exceptions, I never made much headway on testing, but we have released a mountain of open source code. As today is my last day with on News Applications team, I’d like to take a moment to summarize what we’ve made and why it matters.
We’ve released, or substantially contributed to, 20 projects on Github:
- appengine-autotweeter
- beeswithmachineguns
- boundaryservice
- census
- census-map-demo
- cloud-commander
- cloud-commander-recipes
- csvkit
- ctabustracker
- dcupload
- django-boundaryservice
- fakerwiki
- ffs
- hello_newsroom
- englewood
- invar
- making-maps-demo
- ogrkit
- refine-stats
- wordpress-deploy
Of these, only beeswithmachineguns broke out of the News Applications circle of friends to attain mainstream recognition–an accomplishment almost certainly due as much to its cheekiness as its utility. However, despite not reaching a wider community, many of our projects have been successful in their niches. Here are a few examples of what’s happened to some of the projects we’ve released:
- django-boundaryservice is being actively used by developers in Arizona, New York, Norway, and elsewhere. It’s also powering Sunlight Labs’ Open States boundary search API.
- The IRE census application is the first major open source project sponsored by the IRE. To build it we worked alongside developers from CNN, the New York Times, the Spokesman-Review, the University of Nebraska, and USA Today. In this quarter’s IRE magazine director Mark Horvit hails it as a new model for collaboration in journalism.
- csvkit has reached 82 followers, received commits from 10 developers, and appears to be getting traction as a key tool in the data journalist’s toolkit.
- englewood and invar provided new tools for presenting cartographic data, a technique which we’ve since seen adopted elsewhere–not least impressively by our friends at Development Seed.
- We’ve gotten feedback from journalists and hackers of all skill levels that our demos, tutorials and detailed documentary blog posts are helping them learn to do more with their data.
More important than any individual project, we’ve found ourselves in the midst of an exploding community of news-oriented developers who are hell bent on using, contributing to, and releasing new open source code. There are now more than a dozen active news nerd blogs–almost all of them producing new open source code. This works for our industry perhaps even better than it works in the mainstream web development, because, with very few exceptions, none of us are in competition with one another. We can share code with the Washington Post, ProPublica, or the New York Times at absolutely no cost to ourselves. This collaboration allows all of us to serve our readers better.
Thanks to the blessing of the Knight News Challenge, when I start work on PANDA Project on Tuesday I’ll be joining the lucky few who are paid a full-time salary to craft open source software. For me this is a dream come true. However, it won’t be the project I want it to be unless there is a community who is equally passionate about it. The PANDA project is by newsrooms, for newsrooms. I hope that you’ll join me in building a platform that, by being the sum of all our contributions, is much greater than mine.
Endnote: My job is open. It is incredible and wonderful and awesome and you totally want it. Send your resume to: newsapps@tribune.com.
Tribune DataViz 