What’s it like to work for The New York Times ?

IBM / Eng
worldwide9

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 worldwide9
Sep 29, 2020 6 Comments

I’m wondering if there’s anyone in the Technology part of The NY Times who can share what’s it like to work there. The culture , work life balance and salary range.
I didn’t find much info on it here on blind.
Also how competitive is it to land a job there as a Software Engineer or Full Stack dev?

The New York Times
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  • I'd say we definitely put more emphasis on cultural fit than most companies (only 2 out the 5 on-site sessions are technical). I've been on a bunch of panels now and people who ace the tech parts do get rejected for being a poor fit.
    We have a good engineering culture that we always try to improve. The WLB is also great, but I'm sure that depends on the team, and a team with bad WLB would definitely be an exception.
    I won't say the salary is as low as the other post said. My mid-level starting salary was close to 130k TC and I haven't talked to a senior making lass than that as a base.
    I'm currently a senior making close to 180k in TC. I have about 5 YOE total.
    Oct 19, 2020 3
    • worldwide9 wanting to work specifically there is always a plus! So making sure your interviewers know that you're excited about "the mission" is pretty important. Not to say that we don't hire otherwise, but it's definitely something panels flag if it's there (as a positive).

      I'm not sure what they ask during intern interviews to be honest. There might be a technical screen but it might also just be a chat with the hiring manager. They have so many resumes come in for interns that there's a committee to screen them comprised of engineers that pick their top favorite resumes and try to advocate for them. The year I did it, we picked just interesting candidates with interesting previous experiences, tech or otherwise. So a cool project on github is as likely to get you noticed as volunteering for an NGO. From that list, the managers called the candidates and did whatever additional screenings they needed to.

      To be honest, we got so many great-seeming candidates (based on their resumes) that it was very hard to choose.

      We've also definitely hired former interns to full time in many cases so making a good impression does pay off!
      Oct 19, 2020
    • Worldwide9 +1 to what yesabot said. Internship coordinator has a committee of resume screeners. They get like 2000 applications every summer and there’s only like 40ish spots open. For 2021 they also tried something new where candidates can submit their answers to prompts via video recording, as a way to gauge someone in addition to their resume.

      No technical assessment but make sure to be able to explain something technically, talk about your technical projects, and what you learned.

      We look for people who work well with others, especially cross functionally, eager to learn, eager to help others.

      Frontend internships - make sure to emphasize on apps or APIs you’ve built on your resume. It helps if you come from a good school but we try to not focus on that. We have a few partnerships with universities so their students seem to get in the application process sooner before posting the internship listings publicly. We recently partnered with CUNY and Marcy Lab coding school so there was a special pool of applications from them.

      Full time offers right after the internship are not as common, although this year I know we extended an offer to at least one intern and the previous year, an intern who’s still in school got a part time contract (also very uncommon). Interns who finish school and apply for full time roles later on do have higher chances of getting an interview.

      We have associate engineers and hired quite a bit over the last few years. This year we are focused more on hiring senior+ so that we can provide the support associates need to thrive.
      Aug 25, 2021
  • I'm only familiar when applying, but I recall that their salary is relatively on the lower end for NYC. Something like around mid 120k TC for Senior Engineers. Work culture and WLB supposedly very good though.
    Sep 30, 2020 0
  • Competitive - as in many applications are submitted. As for the interviews, it’s like leetcode easy/medium.

    Work life balance depends on the team but in general the company encourages WLB by providing additional PTO days and being mindful of sending Slack messages before/after typical office hours.

    Salary range is disappointing. $130k midlevel, $145k senior for me. It ranges by level which is unfortunate. Senior salary can be anywhere between $110-150k, it really depends on how you negotiate and the budget the hiring manager has. Negotiations is hard so going in with a solid range first will help you since they prob won’t budge with bumping up the base salary. Signing bonuses also range, $5k-$10k is what I’ve heard for mid.

    Culture- eh, everyone’s nice and supportive. Could be better, since it’s such a large company, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. Perks for working at NYT are lacking. Outside of the newsroom, occasionally we have access to something cool like hearing the Pulitzer Prize speeches, the workings of projects like The 1619, etc. oh we can sit in on the Page One meetings where the head editors go over today’s page one section news.
    Aug 25, 2021 0