Senior Director of Product Engineering (AJC)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is seeking an experienced, forward-thinking leader to guide our Product Engineering organization. As the Director or Senior Director of Product Engineering (title commensurate with experience), you will be responsible for the strategic direction, execution, and ongoing evolution of the engineering systems, practices, and platforms that power our products.
You will eliminate single points of failure, standardize engineering systems, and ensure our web and mobile experiences are technically sound, discoverable, and reliable - particularly during high-traffic news events. Your mandate is to move us from reactive fixes to durable systems that consistently support audience growth and subscriber engagement.
At The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), our mission is to be the most essential and engaging source of news for the people of Atlanta, Georgia and the South. As we transition from a historic daily newspaper to a dynamic modern media company, we are seeking a talented a Product Engineering leaderto join our team. The AJC believes that when you cover the South, you uncover the nation. It's a belief that's produced award-winning journalism, elevated our community, and captured the substance and soul of our hometown.
If you're ready to make headlines with your talent and drive, we want you on our team. Apply now and be a part of the next chapter in the AJC's transformation.
WHAT YOU'LL DO:
Responsibilities

• Lead and manage the Product Engineering organization and consumer-facing product engineering stack, including web and mobile applications, APIs, email newsletter templates, release systems, and performance monitoring.
• Collaborate with senior leaders to understand needs, translate strategy into technical plans, and ensure that architecture, systems, and delivery practices align with product roadmaps and business goals.
• Provide technical and operational leadership for major consumer-facing initiatives, ensuring they meet business requirements, adhere to budget and timelines, and follow best-in-class engineering, architectural, and security standards.
• Accountable for consumer platform performance and engineering health, including Core Web Vitals, client-side error rates, API reliability, release quality, and crash-free sessions. Establish clear ownership, monitoring, and escalation paths to prevent regressions and ensure resilience during peak traffic events.
• Partner with the Principal Enterprise Architect to strengthen application architecture, CDN, caching, and edge practices, reducing single points of failure and ensuring redundancy in platform-critical systems.
• Provide technical leadership for SEO and discoverability hygiene, including structured data integrity, rendering performance, crawl/indexation monitoring, template consistency, and platform-level safeguards that prevent search and answer-engine regressions.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, engineering methodologies, and AI-driven workflows, assessing their potential value and guiding thoughtful adoption that improves engineering leverage and velocity.
• Define and uphold engineering policies, standards, and operating procedures, including code quality, release management, testing frameworks, data integrity, security, and privacy requirements.
• Manage relationships with external vendors, agencies, and technology partners, negotiating agreements, overseeing performance, and ensuring service levels and delivery expectations are met.
• Recruit, mentor, and inspire a high-performing engineering team, fostering a culture of accountability, craftsmanship, continuous improvement, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Monitor engineering performance metrics, using data to identify bottlenecks, drive quality improvements, strengthen reliability, and enhance operational efficiency.

WHO YOU ARE:
Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field plus 12 years experience. Equivalent practical experience may be substituted for education.
• Proven leadership experience building and leading engineering teams; typically 12+ years of engineering experience with at least 7+ years in engineering leadership with direct reports.
• Deep knowledge of modern software engineering, including web and mobile application development, cloud architectures, API design, CI/CD pipelines, test automation, and platform services.
• Demonstrated ability to shape and execute technology strategy, including architecture design, engineering process modernization, and long-term systems planning aligned with business objectives.
• Strong understanding of digital media, consumer platforms, subscription-driven products, or similar industries where reliability, user experience, and high-velocity delivery are critical.
• Familiarity with technologies common to media and consumer subscription businesses, such as content management systems, subscription or identity systems, personalization frameworks, analytics platforms, and advertising or marketing technologies.
• Exceptional leadership and people-management skills, with a demonstrated ability to build high-performing teams, cultivate engineering talent, and drive results through clarity and accountability.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, paired with a strategic mindset and sound judgment.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively across technical and non-technical teams and to represent engineering at the executive level.
• Must live within a commutable distance to our Midtown Atlanta office (or be willing to relocate)
• Must be comfortable with up to 15% travel

USD 179,600.00 - 299,400.00
Compensation:
Compensation includes a base salary in the range of $179,600.00 - $299,400.00. The base salary may vary within the anticipated base pay range based on factors such as the ultimate location of the position and the selected candidate's knowledge, skills, and abilities. Position may be eligible for additional compensation that may include an incentive program.
Benefits:
The Company offers eligible employees the flexibility to take as much vacation with pay as they deem consistent with their duties, the company's needs, and its obligations; seven paid holidays throughout the calendar year; and up to 160 hours of paid wellness annually for their own wellness or that of family members. Employees are also eligible for additional paid time off in the form of bereavement leave, time off to vote, jury duty leave, volunteer time off, military leave, and parental leave.
Applicants must currently be authorized to work in the United States for any employer without current or future sponsorship.