Engineering Director — Reader Experience & Interactive

The Atlantic; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 185,000 - 215,000; Full time

Job summary

The Atlantic in Washington, DC is seeking an experienced Director of Engineering to lead the Reader Experience and Interactive engineering missions, shaping how readers discover, consume, and engage with our journalism across platforms.

You will manage engineering managers and senior leaders, recruit and retain top talent, and collaborate with Product, Design, Editorial, and business partners to plan and deliver high-impact work.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including leadership through managers.
• 4+ years in engineering leadership roles with multiple teams or broad product areas.
• Strong technical background in modern web application development and architecture.
• Demonstrated experience recruiting, developing, and retaining engineering talent.
• Demonstrated experience leading teams through full product development cycles.
• Strong judgment in prioritization, staffing, organizational design, and cross-team execution.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering across Reader Experience and Interactive teams, including managers and senior technical leaders across multiple product areas.
• Recruit, develop, and retain a high-performing engineering organization.
• Partner with Product, Design, Editorial, and stakeholders to plan, scope, and deliver impactful work.
• Set clear expectations and support managers and engineers in growing toward their goals.
• Build clarity around ownership, prioritization, and decision-making across teams with overlapping systems and dependencies.
• Stay close enough to the work to weigh in on technical direction, tradeoffs, and risks.
• Improve knowledge sharing and reduce single points of failure with durable documentation and architectural practices.
• Represent teams’ work and needs in broader engineering and cross-functional conversations.
• Contribute to engineering-wide standards, hiring, and planning as a peer to other leaders.
• Participate in incident response leadership and reliability practices to improve resilience.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Software architecture

Talent recruitment & development

Cross-team collaboration

Product & stakeholder alignment

AI awareness

Job description

The Atlantic in Washington, DC is seeking an experienced Director of Engineering to lead the Reader Experience and Interactive engineering missions, shaping how readers discover, consume, and engage with our journalism across platforms.

You will manage engineering managers and senior leaders, recruit and retain top talent, and collaborate with Product, Design, Editorial, and business partners to plan and deliver high-impact work.