Chief Engineer
WVTM, the NBC and CBS affiliates in Birmingham, Alabama “The Magic City” is seeking a Chief Engineer. The successful candidate will lead a team and demonstrate the ability to organize, plan, manage, document and complete assignments within a live broadcast environment. You will work in collaboration with the other department heads and directly oversee the daily operation of the station. We are looking for someone with experience in broadcast excellence and teamwork, with a passion for serving the local community, ready to embrace the challenges and opportunities of our ever-evolving industry. The ideal candidate must excel in motivating and working with a high-energy team, enthusiastic about collaborating with all departments, integrating AI into solutions and workflow, focused on the future of our industry. Candidate should demonstrate success in budgeting, capital planning and personnel management. This position reports directly to the General Manager and partners with Hearst Television leadership.
What You’ll Do
Engineering Leadership
Lead, coach, and develop the station’s engineering team, including staffing, scheduling, AI adoption and implementation, performance feedback, technical training, and on-call coverage.
Set priorities and service standards for engineering work, build strong working relationships across departments, and communicate technical issues and their operational impact clearly.
Partner with the General Manager and station leaders to align technology plans with local journalism, production, business needs, and Hearst Television standards.
Broadcast and Facility Operations
Oversee the reliability, maintenance, troubleshooting, and lifecycle planning of broadcast, newsroom, production, automation, master control, media storage, network, streaming, and transmission systems.
Maintain station transmission and RF facilities, studios, control rooms, remote production equipment, and critical infrastructure such as generators, UPS, and HVAC systems supporting technical operations.
Provide engineering leadership during live programming, breaking news, severe weather, outages, and other urgent events; coordinate response, recovery, and follow-up.
Compliance, Safety, and Resilience
Ensure required FCC, EAS, and other applicable regulatory and industry obligations are met, with accurate records, scheduled testing, inspections, and timely corrective action.
Maintain preventive maintenance, equipment inventory, technical documentation, safety practices, emergency preparedness, backup power, and disaster recovery plans.
Coordinate with Hearst Television and enterprise IT partners on cybersecurity, network resilience, access practices, and business continuity for station systems.
Planning and Modernization
Develop and manage operating and capital budgets, equipment replacement plans, vendor relationships, service contracts, and engineering projects from proposal through implementation.
Evaluate and implement improvements to IP-based workflows, automation, cloud or hybrid services, streaming, and other emerging technologies while protecting reliable on-air operations.
Use approved AI tools, where appropriate, to support technical research, summarize logs or documentation, identify workflow improvement opportunities, and organize maintenance or project information; verify outputs before use and follow company requirements for confidential, employee, and operational data.
Review significant technical incidents, identify root causes, document corrective actions, and apply lessons learned to improve reliability.
What You’ll Need
At least 7 years of progressively responsible experience in television broadcast engineering, media technology, or a closely related technical field, including experience leading or supervising technical staff.
Working knowledge of television broadcast systems, RF transmission, studio and newsroom technologies, automation, IP-based media workflows, and applicable FCC and EAS requirements.
Experience planning technical projects, managing budgets and vendors, prioritizing equipment lifecycle needs, and coordinating work across departments.
Ability to troubleshoot complex systems, make sound decisions under deadline pressure, and explain technical issues to both technical and non-technical colleagues.
Ability to provide support during live operations and occasional nights, weekends, holidays, or emergencies as station needs require.
Education, training, or experience in broadcast engineering, electrical engineering, information technology, electronics, or a related field. Hearst Television will consider a college degree, trade school diploma, professional certificates, military training, or equivalent practical experience.
Experience with broadcast automation, IP video and audio, streaming, cloud or hybrid media systems, cybersecurity practices, emergency planning, and relevant certifications such as SBE is valued.
Related military experience will be considered.
Values in Action
At Hearst Television we tell stories every day. Stories about people of all backgrounds, perspectives, and identities. That’s why, behind the scenes, we believe in being an organization that fosters collaboration and open communication, ensuring that the content we create is authentic, accurate, and connected to the communities we serve.
Benefits
Hearst's benefit programs are modern, flexible and designed to focus on you. As a Hearst employee, you and your spouse or partner or dependents would have access to the following benefits.
Medical | Dental | Vision
401(k) matching
Emotional Wellness Support
Paid Time Off
Paid Parental Leave
LGBTQ+ Health Services
Additional benefits to meet your and your family's needs
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. we do not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, creed, national, origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.
Skills Required
- At least 7 years of progressively responsible experience in television broadcast engineering, media technology, or a closely related technical field, including experience leading or supervising technical staff.
- Working knowledge of television broadcast systems, RF transmission, studio and newsroom technologies, automation, IP-based media workflows, and applicable FCC and EAS requirements.
- Experience planning technical projects, managing budgets and vendors, prioritizing equipment lifecycle needs, and coordinating work across departments.
- Ability to troubleshoot complex systems, make sound decisions under deadline pressure, and explain technical issues to technical and non-technical colleagues.
- Ability to provide support during live operations and occasional nights, weekends, holidays, or emergencies as station needs require.
- Education, training, or experience in broadcast engineering, electrical engineering, information technology, electronics, or a related field; equivalent practical experience is accepted.
- Experience with broadcast automation, IP video and audio, streaming, cloud or hybrid media systems, cybersecurity practices, emergency planning, and relevant certifications such as SBE.
- Related military experience.
Hearst Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Hearst and has not been reviewed or approved by Hearst.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is described as comprehensive, including medical plan choice, full in-network preventive coverage, dental and vision, telemedicine, prescription coverage, and fertility resources. Mental-health resources and other wellbeing services (e.g., therapy sessions, crisis support, virtual physical therapy, and chronic-condition programs) further strengthen the health offering.
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Retirement Support — Retirement support is positioned as meaningful through a 401(k) plan with company matching and Hearst covering plan administration fees. Performance bonuses are also noted as available in some roles, adding an additional rewards component beyond base pay.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off benefits include paid holidays, paid sick days, and vacation time with a commonly cited annual range, alongside paid parental leave and family medical leave. A remote work program and flexibility signals are also included as part of the overall rewards experience.
Hearst Insights
What We Do
Hearst is a leading global, diversified media, information and services company with more than 360 businesses. Its major interests include ownership in cable television networks such as A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime and ESPN; global financial services leader Fitch Group; Hearst Health, a group of medical information and services businesses; transportation assets including CAMP Systems International, a major provider of software-as-a-service solutions for managing maintenance of jets and helicopters; 33 television stations such as WCVB-TV in Boston and KCRA-TV in Sacramento, California, which reach a combined 19 percent of U.S. viewers; newspapers such as the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle and Times Union (Albany, New York); more than 300 magazines around the world, including Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Men's Health and Car and Driver, and digital services businesses such as iCrossing and KUBRA; and investments in emerging digital entertainment companies such as Complex Networks.
