Software Engineer, Product & Audience Technology

OVERVIEW

A thriving, mission-driven multimedia organization, NPR produces award-winning news, information, and music programming in partnership with hundreds of independent public radio stations across the nation. The NPR audience values information, creativity, curiosity, and social responsibility – and our employees do too. We are innovators and leaders in diverse fields, from journalism and digital media to IT and development. Every day, our employees and member stations touch the lives of millions worldwide. 

Across our organization, we’re building a workplace where collaboration is essential, diverse voices are heard, and inclusion is the key to our success. We are committed to doing the right thing in our journalism and in every role at NPR. This means that integrity, adherence to our ethical standards, and compliance with legal obligations are fundamental responsibilities for every employee at NPR.

Intro to Position

The Audience Technology group is looking for an experienced, talented and knowledgeable Software Engineer to join the Consumer & Network Services team responsible for developing, supporting and maintaining our microservices, core backend APIs, and systems that power donor/subscriber conversion experiences on NPR platforms. These are the APIs and services that drive innovation and engagement across NPR’s audience facing digital platforms and member station touch points. You will be a key part of NPR’s digital sustainability by building the technology that deepens our audience engagement and drives financial support from users.

We are looking for someone to help develop, support and maintain our audience revenue platforms which include donations and our premium podcast offering. Examples of technology you’ll work with include our payment processing solution (Stripe), the systems powering our Podcast Subscription Service (NPR+). You will be a vital contributor to NPR’s efforts to increase financial support from our audience for our mission as we build the technology needed to service long term sustainable growth.

You’ll also work on the Identity and Listening services, which directly power the NPR mobile applications as well as our Alexa skill. These services provide NPR content recommendations directly to thousands of users on a daily basis. You’ll also collaborate closely with our client-side engineering teams who manage NPR.org and the NPR mobile app.

This is a union-represented role covered under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement with NABET-CWA DMU. 

Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and support our core backend APIs, with a primary focus on our Identity Service (PHP 8) and Stripe Connect API (Node.js).
• Manage and refine API  integrations with key external softwares such as Marketing Cloud and Supporting Cast. 
• Maintain and update Piano software implementation on NPR.org, iterating on promotional messaging utilizing foundational front-end web technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS).
• Partner to develop new front-end and back-end code that powers key parts of the user lifecycle on NPR products, including  newsletter enrollments, account creation and management, donation and subscription.
• Collaborate across teams to implement A/B tests across user experiences to optimize performance and drive our goals.
• Ensure technology meets standards in security and compliance in coordination with our IT security group.
• Deploy consistent log monitoring to ensure we can understand and remediate issues identified in our code. 
• Leverage modern developer tooling—including AI coding assistants and LLMs—to accelerate boilerplate development, generate tests, and troubleshoot complex debugging scenarios.
• Write clean, efficient, scalable, and reusable code based on product specifications.
• Provide input on system design and architecture within the feature areas and services owned by the team.
• Participate in all phases of quality assurance and defect resolution to ensure seamless audience conversion experiences.
• Collaborate in code reviews, knowledge sharing, and writing technical designs.
• Mentor and coach junior engineers on code quality and best practices, fostering a highly motivated and mission-driven team culture.
• Actively participate in agile ceremonies (including daily stand-ups, sprint retros, sprint reviews) and join our on-call rotation.

The above duties and responsibilities are not an exhaustive list of required responsibilities, duties and skills. Other duties may be assigned, and this job description can be modified at any time.

Minimum Qualifications

• 3 to 5 years of experience in software development
• Fluency in PHP and Node.js or a modern backend language (such as Python, Node.js, Go, Java) and an eager, enthusiastic willingness to cross-train into our modern PHP 8 ecosystem.
• Working knowledge of foundational front-end web technologies (HTML, CSS, vanilla JavaScript).
• Experience in developing and working with RESTful APIs that utilize cloud infrastructure such as AWS.
• Demonstrated adaptability and eagerness to integrate new technologies (such as GenAI developer tools) into your daily engineering workflow to improve efficiency and output.
• Strong Object-Oriented programming skills and familiarity with SQL and RDBMS technologies.
• Experience writing unit and other automated tests to ensure reliable production deployments.
• Solid knowledge of web development best practices, coding standards, source control management, build processes, and testing.
• A demonstrable passion for public media and NPR's mission to create a more informed public.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with Stripe Connect or other modern payment processing platforms.
• Previous work in PCI-compliant environments, or comparable security experience managing sensitive user/donor data.
• Experience with podcast subscription platforms, such as Supporting Cast or our internal NPR+ systems.
• Advanced experience with the Amazon AWS ecosystem (e.g., Lambda, EC2s, DynamoDB, RDS).
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (Github Actions, Jenkins, CodeFresh, or equivalent).
• Experience using performance monitoring and log aggregation applications (Datadog, New Relic) to proactively troubleshoot production issues.

Work Location & Requirements

• NPR Remote-Permitted: This is a remote-permitted role. This role is based out of our Washington, D.C. office, but the employee may choose to work on a remote basis from a location that NPR approves. You will have the option of working (a) remotely from a location of your choosing within the United States that is supported by NPR; (b) on-site at an NPR facility, based on the availability of desks and approval from NPR; or (c) a combination of both. Regardless of where you choose to work from, you may be expected to travel to other locations from time to time to perform the duties of your position.

Job Type

• This is a full-time, exempt position.

Compensation

Salary Range: The U.S. based anticipated salary range for this opportunity is $117,968.09 - $‎128,281.16 plus benefits. The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum salaries NPR expects to provide for new hires for the position across all US locations.

NPR Benefits: NPR offers access to comprehensive benefits for employees and dependents. Regular, full-time employees scheduled to work 30 hours or more per week are eligible to enroll in NPR’s benefits options. Benefits include access to health and wellness, paid time off, and financial well-being. Plan options include medical, dental, vision, life/ accidental death and dismemberment, long-term disability, short-term disability, and voluntary retirement savings to all eligible NPR employees. 

Does this sound like you? If so, we want to hear from you.

#LI-REMOTE

NPR is an Equal Opportunity Employer. NPR is committed to being an inclusive workplace that welcomes diverse and unique perspectives, all working toward the same goal – to create a more informed public. Qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, age, religion, religious belief, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions, lactation, and reproductive health decisions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, transgender status, gender non-conforming status, intersex status, sexual stereotypes, nationality, citizenship status, personal appearance, marital status, family status, family responsibilities, military status, veteran status, mental and physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, genetic characteristics of yourself or a family member, political views and affiliation, unemployment status, protective order status, status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, or any other basis prohibited under applicable law.

If you are a person with a disability needing assistance with the application process, please reach out to employeerelations@npr.org.

You may read NPR’s privacy policy to learn about how NPR may handle information you submit with any application.

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