Listing Description

ProPublica, the leading nonprofit investigative news organization, is looking for a hands-on leader who can enable our editorial and business teams to work more effectively, ambitiously and securely.

This person will be expected to make a real difference in an organization that’s growing and moving at the pace of news.

Your work will play an essential role in fulfilling our mission: producing journalism that spurs real-world change. That means helping sharpen the tools we use to do our work, ensuring our systems are resilient and keeping our staffers, our work and our sources secure.

The nature of ProPublica’s journalism means we face consistent challenges and unique threats. Some recent examples include safeguarding the trove of never-before-seen information obtained while reporting “The Secret IRS Files” and protecting confidential material used in our series chronicling neglect in the Navy.

Push us to use technology to better automate and collaborate, and to analyze our work — from newsgathering and publishing to critical functions such as HR, finance and audience development. To put it simply, help us find useful and delightful ways that technology can help us do our jobs better.

You’ll supervise and work alongside the manager of technology and operations to ensure that our technology, infrastructure and tools are as modern and robust as possible. Based in our New York City office, this role will report jointly to the chief product officer and general counsel.

Our Environment

The ideal candidate is an expert with some of our existing infrastructure and is positioned to advocate for improvements.

We have nearly 200 employees using a mix of Windows and Mac computers and Apple and Android mobile devices in an increasingly distributed environment. Devices and services are managed with Jamf, Microsoft Endpoint Manager and Azure.

We’re headquartered in New York City with smaller, regional offices in Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Berkeley, California; Austin, Texas; Phoenix; and Atlanta. Many more employees are working entirely remotely, and we have plans to grow our staff.

Web hosting is on Linux-based containers operating in Amazon Web Services. A limited number of physical servers are Windows-based. Teams use both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace for communications and productivity tools. Additional SaaS tools used extensively across the organization include Slack, Airtable, Trello, Salesforce, Expensify, Greenhouse and Zenefits.

Responsibilities

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  Broad oversight of the major technology solutions deployed across the organization.

  
  


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  Monitor, model and mitigate information and operational security threats. Chair an internal security committee to ensure best practices. Represent the organization with outside security consultants and organizations.

  
  


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  Manage the on- and off-boarding of employees from services and devices, ensure the help desk is adequately staffed and effective.

  
  


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  Maintain existing infrastructure, including both local systems and a growing number of critical integrations with cloud software providers.

  
  


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  Collaborate with developers across the organization to ensure their work is coordinated and in support of our larger technology strategy.

  
  


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  Take accountability for a significant budget, including capital planning and forecasting. Serve as the primary billing and technical contact for technology vendors, including cost controls.

  
  


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  Manage relationships with vendors and direct managed service providers to assist ProPublica with its technology goals.

  
  

Experience and Skills

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  Experience as a senior technology manager or program leader, preferably working at a media, nonprofit or technology organization.

  
  


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  A demonstrated commitment to the technology needs of colleagues and a genuine interest in crafting solutions thatenable their work while keeping them protected.

  
  


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  A sophisticated understanding of risk assessment and mitigation, and the ability to solve problems dynamically, particularly for reporters in the field and for issues related to managing and securing sensitive data.

  
  


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  A preference to work hands-on, with strong computer networking skills and some programming or scripting skills. This is a small team and this person will need to work on both strategy and implementation.

  
  


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  Experience as an agent of change inside an organization, effectively persuading end users to adopt new ways of working while balancing the priorities of leadership.

  
  


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  Excellent written, verbal and interpersonal skills with the proven ability to successfully work across a complex organization.

  
  


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  A friendly, entrepreneurial and collaborative approach to work.

  
  

This is a full-time position based in New York City. Applicants must be able to work in the office at least two to three days per week.

Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S.

The expected salary range for this position is $140,000 to $165,000.

This is a good-faith estimate of what we expect to pay for this position. The final salary figure will take into account a person’s experience, accomplishment and location. ProPublica is committed to paying its staff equitably, and these ranges should not be considered career salary limits or caps.