About Chicago Public Media
Home to WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Public Media is the largest local non-profit news organization in the country. WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times serve more than 2 million people weekly across broadcast, print, and digital platforms. As a mission-driven organization, we aspire to become the essential and most trusted news source that Chicago turns to each day for understanding the people, events, and ideas that shape our community.
WBEZ is home to local and national news programming as well as a growing portfolio of popular podcasts. WBEZ serves the community with fact-based, objective news and information, and its award-winning journalists ask tough questions, dig deep for answers and expose truths that spark change and foster understanding. WBEZ is supported by 77,000 members, hundreds of corporate sponsors and major donors. In 2024, Chicago Public Media won 33 national and local awards including from the National Headliner Awards, National Association for Black Journalists, Public Media Journalists Association, Radio Television Digital News Association, Chicago Headline Club, Chicago Journalists Association, Media for a Just Society, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.
Chicago Sun-Times is Chicago’s oldest continuously published daily newspaper serving Chicago and is known for its hard-hitting investigative reporting, in-depth political coverage, timely behind-the-scenes sports analysis, and insightful entertainment and cultural coverage. Chicago Sun-Times is the winner of eight Pulitzer Prizes and countless other awards. In recent years, the Sun-Times has focused on a digital transformation to deliver its news and content to a growing digital audience. Most recently, the Sun-Times dropped the paywall on suntimes.com to expand access to its journalism, and shifted to a community-funded digital membership program supported by voluntary member donations.
Chicago Public Media believes independent journalism is essential to a well-functioning democracy and access to fact-based, objective news and information is a right of every citizen. We serve the public interest by creating diverse, compelling content that informs, inspires, and enriches. We connect diverse audiences and help them make a difference in the community, the region and the world. And, we employ 300+ staff who want to belong to an organization that inspires, supports, and challenges them to do their best work.
For more information, please see the Chicago Public Media Annual Report.
The Opportunity
We’re looking for a versatile Data Platform Engineer to join our Enterprise Systems team. This role is ideal for someone who thrives on solving complex data problems, enjoys working across systems, and can bridge the gap between infrastructure and analytics. You'll help design, build, and maintain the pipelines and tools that ensure our organizational data flows reliably and is ready for use in critical platforms like our CRM, ESP, donation systems, and analytics environments.
You’ll work alongside the Senior Engineering Manager who will help define the architecture and systems, while you execute, troubleshoot, and improve those systems with increasing ownership over time.
General Responsibilities
- Build and maintain ETL pipelines using Python and SQL to move data between internal systems and external platforms (e.g., CRMs, ESPs).
- Ensure data reliability and integrity across systems and develop automated validation and alerting.
- Troubleshoot issues across platforms and contribute to root cause analysis and long-term solutions.
- Collaborate with team members and stakeholders to understand business requirements and translate them into scalable technical solutions.
- Participate in monitoring, performance tuning, and refactoring of existing data flows.
- Help maintain and extend internal tools that support data operations and stakeholder reporting needs.
- Document systems, processes, and logic to ensure knowledge sharing and continuity.
Qualifications
- 3–5 years of experience in a data engineering, systems integration, or similar role.
- Proficient in Python (Or Equivalent) and SQL, with experience building maintainable ETL pipelines.
- Experience working with relational databases (e.g., SQL Server, Postgres).
- Comfortable navigating and integrating with REST APIs and working with cloud-based services.
- Experience working with CRM or ESP platforms (e.g., Salesforce, RevCRM, Marketing Cloud, EveryAction, etc.) is a plus.
- Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to debug across systems.
- Excellent communication and documentation habits.
- Comfortable navigating and troubleshooting legacy pipelines and code, with a focus on understanding historical context before making changes.
Compensation
The expected pay range for this position is $101,810.00 - $120,000.00 per ANNUM.
Chicago Public Media provides pay ranges representing its good faith estimate of what the organization reasonably expects to pay for a position. The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, departmental budget availability, internal equity, geographical location, and external market pay for comparable jobs.
Working at Chicago Public Media
At Chicago Public Media, we care deeply about our employees as we know attracting, developing, and growing talent is key to our success and enhancing our impact.
Our culture is one where collaboration, diversity of ideas, and innovation are encouraged. We value colleagues who will enhance our culture by bringing new ideas, divergent experiences, and talents to our dynamic workplace.
At Chicago Public Media we believe dedication to a great workplace includes supporting our employees and their families. As a result, we provide a broad and generous benefits package for employees at hire and in the years to come.
Our benefits include a competitive salary and benefits package which includes medical, dental, vision, vacation, holidays, life insurance, disability coverage, retirement savings, and a commuter benefits plan.
Chicago Public Media is an Equal Opportunity Employer and we actively seek and welcome people from all backgrounds, orientations, and life experiences to join our team.
The essential functions described above are not all-inclusive and are not intended to create any contractual or other legal commitment. Chicago Public Media may change the content or format of this job at any time in its sole and exclusive discretion without notice.
Top Skills
What We Do
We are Chicago’s NPR news station, one of the largest and most respected public media stations in the country. Our mission is at the heart of WBEZ Chicago. We fulfill our mission at WBEZ by serving as a cornerstone of the public conversation; as a central pillar of our civic community; and by reasserting ourselves as the heart of innovation within public media.
We amplify the public conversation by telling the stories that matter; stories that provoke thought, entertain, capture emotion and inspire action. We are a trusted source of news and information in the Chicago region. People turn to WBEZ for our high-quality, fact-based journalism; engaging, entertaining programs on 91.5FM; original podcasts; and digital content
