Interactive Story Designer

ProPublica is seeking a talented interactive designer to craft stories with real-world impact.  

You will work closely with ProPublica’s award-winning journalists to design and build rich story experiences, like our illustrated narrative about a woman on a farmworker visa, our typographic explainer of how nonprofits stripped diversity, equity and inclusion language from their mission statements or our immersive video project on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ violent tactics. Your projects will range from creating visual-first stories to building multimedia features that elevate our daily storytelling to experimenting with innovative story and graphical forms.

You will be at the epicenter of one of the most exciting newsrooms in the country, where every day will be a chance to work in an environment where design is integral to the mission. 

This position will report to our graphics director and will collaborate with members of our other departments including visuals, video, news apps and product, as well as writers and story editors.

We’re Looking for Someone With:

• At least three years of relevant design experience.
• An understanding of good design principles and how to design for clarity and impact.
• The ability to communicate visual ideas through sketches and prototypes with visual journalists as well as reporters and editors.
• Fluency in web development including HTML, CSS and Javascript.
• A solid knowledge of or background in journalism; prior reporting experience is a plus. 
• A love for details and making things.
• A deep desire to work on important accountability stories and an eagerness to help dig for the truth to help spur reform.
• A talent for translating complex topics clearly and compellingly to our audience. 
• An ability to work on several projects at once. You’ll need to stay organized and focused.
• An ability to travel occasionally for meetings and trainings.

We look for people who have proven that they can use technical and design skills for journalistic ends, are clear communicators and are thoughtful, passionate advocates for the user. If you have a background in graphics or data visualization, even if you’ve never held the title of designer, this job may be for you. 

This job is full time and includes benefits. ProPublica is based in New York, but we’re open to remote candidates in the U.S. We have offices in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Chicago; Phoenix; and Berkeley, California. Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S.

The expected salary range for this position is $110,000 to $130,000.

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.

What You Should Send Us:

Projects are the most important part of the application, not fancy degrees or deep resumes. Your application is a chance to show us your ability to contribute to great work.

You’ll be able to send us three projects from your portfolio (if you don’t have a portfolio, links or screenshots are fine). Here you can walk us through your contributions to those projects. Take advantage of this to tell us everything you did, from behind-the-scenes wins you’re proud of to how you helped your colleagues to what you might have done differently a second time around. Tell us what worked and what didn’t, and how that fit into the context of what was needed for the project.

We will begin reviewing applications as we receive them, but we will continue to consider candidates as long as the posting remains live on our site.

Questions? Send an email to talent@propublica.org. 

No phone calls, please.

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