Elections Automation Manager (News Manager)

The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiasednews in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world's population sees AP journalism every day.

The Associated Press seeks a skilled developer and talented manager who is eager to use the power of code, automation and AI to help us count the vote in U.S. elections. We're looking for someone to lead our Elections Automation team and the operation that develops and uses programmatic solutions to collect results of U.S. elections from web sites, data feeds, APIs and other data sources. This administrative position will serve as a leader in the Tabulation and Research group of AP's U.S. Elections Services team and is based in Washington, D.C., although exceptional candidates in other locations will be considered.

Responsibilities: Reporting to the director of tabulation and research, you will be a leader on the team that counts the vote in U.S. elections by tabulating election results as released by local election officials as part of AP's coverage of elections and our unique role in the American democracy. In this role, you will design, build and develop a suite of tools and applications to collect and track election results and related data via automated processes - be they scrapes of web sites, ingestion of data feeds or polls of APIs.

You won't start from scratch: AP has used programmatic solutions to capture vote count results and related elections data for years. But you also won't rest on our laurels: We expect you to take what we do today and make it better. That includes looking for ways to use automation and programmatic solutions in all that we do in the pursuit of accuracy, speed and efficiency.

As a leader on the tabulation and research team, you will also manage a team who use the tools you build on election nights (and the days thereafter) to swiftly and accurately collect the vote, perform quality control checks and publish it to AP's elections audience and customers of our Election Services products. And we'll expect you as a leader to help us iterate our overall processes - as you will improve your team's tools and apps - in the pursuit of servicing the interests of that audience and the needs of our customers.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, such as at least one year of full-time work as a developer or software engineer. A master's degree or equivalent experience is a plus.
• All applicants must be able to work in the U.S. or be able to gain permission to do so.
• The ability and willingness to work at night and on weekends, as AP is a 24/7 operation and polls almost always close after the end of the business day.
• Advanced-level professional competency in written and spoken English. Professional competency in a language besides English is a plus.

Preferred Qualifications: We're looking for someone with advanced proficiency in one or more programming and statistical languages, preferably Python and R, as well as scraping libraries and frameworks. Familiarity with using generative AI to quickly write smart, adaptable code is a plus. Experience working with voter files, election results and public opinion research is essential: Election data lives online in many ways and in many places, none of them the same. Collecting it with code requires a combination of engineering and art. You're someone with proven experience extracting data from complex web sites and programmatic sources, as well as building and maintaining ETL pipelines to process that data.

You are a highly motivated, independent and detail-oriented developer - and leader of developers - who is committed to using your technical skills to advance the strong, fact-based reporting of AP's staff. You embrace best practices and agile methodologies, write modular, reusable code, and help others to do so. You refactor and test, and you use the outcomes of every election to improve your approach to the next. You keep an eye on new technologies and enjoy developing creative solutions, even under tight deadlines.

You understand that there's always more to know, and you expect to learn from your teammates in addition to sharing what you know. You're looking for a collegial environment that involves consistent communication and pair coding, and you enjoy sharing ideas with people from diverse backgrounds, areas of expertise and experience.

We will consider strong candidates who do not meet every listed qualification. You may use a cover letter to describe the unique qualifications you would bring to this role.

The anticipated salary range for this position is $110,000-$135,000, negotiable based on experience, qualifications, market location and other job-related factors.

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

Application deadline is August 12, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. EST.

AP seeks to build an inclusive organization grounded in respect for differences. We support all aspects of diversity and provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, marital status, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, status as a veteran, or other characteristic protected by law.