Engineering Manager, Platform

About the role

The Associated Press is seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to lead the development and evolution of the platform that powers AP’s consumer-facing products. This role is central to enabling product velocity while maintaining the stability and integrity of AP’s consumer platforms.

Responsibilities

• Arcitect scalable solutions to support high-traffic consumer environments.
• Manage and mentor an agile team of platform engineers, including distributed vendor partners.
• Design, implement, and maintain APIs, services, and integrations that support consumer products and editorial workflows.
• Develop and extend CMS to support evolving product and editorial workflows, templates, and publishing experiences.
• Build and operate backend services that support AP’s consumer products, including shared services, integrations, data flows, and operational tooling not covered by managed services.
• Own API and data contracts, including schema governance (GraphQL where applicable), to ensure backward-compatible change and reliable client integrations across web and native mobile apps.
• Lead backend performance optimization efforts (latency, throughput, caching, scalability) to improve end-user experience.
• Partner with AP’s Operations Command Center (OCC) and other stakeholders to support incident response, root cause analysis, and post-incident follow-through for owned services and infrastructure.
• Collaborate closely with product engineering to ensure platform capabilities and delivery timelines support product goals.
• Work closely with Product, Editorial, QA, Operations, Security, and Revenue partners to align platform execution with business and editorial objectives.
• Ensure platform changes meet security, privacy, and compliance requirements; partner with centralized Security teams on standards and remediation.
• Leverage analytics and operational insights to inform platform prioritization and long-term technical strategy.
• Engage with vendors and third-party services as needed, establishing clear ownership and predictable delivery.

Requirements

• 6+ years of experience building and operating backend or platform systems, including experience in a technical leadership or engineering management role.
• Demonstrated success operating as a player-coach, balancing hands-on development with team leadership and delivery accountability.
• Hands-on experience developing and extending CMS platforms; Brightspot experience is a plus.
• Experience designing and operating API-driven systems and integrations; familiarity with GraphQL and contract/versioning discipline is a strong plus.
• Experience building and operating APIs and services outside that support multiple client surfaces.
• Strong experience optimizing backend performance and diagnosing production issues in high-traffic environments.
• Working knowledge of observability and monitoring practices used to diagnose complex platform issues.
• Experience partnering with operations and incident response teams, including participating in production incident triage and follow-through.
• Experience managing distributed teams and external vendors across multiple time zones.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to perform root cause analysis and drive practical solutions.
• Strong communicator with experience partnering closely with Product, Client Engineering, Editorial, QA, Security, and Operations stakeholders.
• Experience working in agile development environments and leading cross-functional teams.
• Familiarity with monetization systems (advertising and/or consumer pay) and first-party identity/data concepts is a plus.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in computer science or a related field (or equivalent experience).

Skills

• Technical leadership experience.
• API design and implementation.
• Backend performance optimization.
• Observability and monitoring.
• Collaboration with operations and incident response teams.
• Team management and mentoring.
• Agile development environments.
• Monetization systems (advertising and/or consumer pay).

Benefits

The anticipated salary range for this position is $123,000 - $170,000 - based on a candidate’s skills, qualifications and location. The Associated Press offers comprehensive benefits, which include:

• Competitive medical, dental and vision coverage
• Retirement benefits
• Company paid life insurance
• Paid vacation and sick days
• Paid parental leave for any new parent
• Mental well-being resources