AI Engineering Fellow

Summary

Join ProPublica's two-year fellowship as a hands-on engineer to explore responsible uses of AI and machine learning in investigative journalism. You will prototype newsroom tools and systems for safe AI model usage, identify opportunities for AI application, and share best practices. Collaborate with journalists, developers, and data scientists on projects like improving data organization and accessibility. The fellowship involves working with large language models, data processing, and contributing to open-source projects. The position reports to the senior director of technology and is part of an industrywide program. The ideal candidate has at least five years of software engineering experience and two years of data processing experience.

Requirements

• At least five years experience in software engineering
• Minimum of two years experience in data processing, including data cleaning and building or maintaining data pipelines
• Experience using generative AI and large language models APIs
• Familiarity with LLM prompt engineering, fine-tuning or evaluation techniques
• Understanding of the technology’s limitations and risks, including hallucinations and bias
• Fluency in modern and widely supported software languages like Node and Python
• Discipline to work independently, as well as an eagerness to work with teammates on collaborative projects
• Great written and spoken communication skills
• The ability to travel, as needed, for team meetings and training at ProPublica’s offices and as part of the Lenfest fellowship program

Responsibilities

• Prototype and test ideas with potential for production use, while documenting findings to help inform future newsroom efforts
• Prototype newsroom tools and systems to safely use AI models without compromising sensitive data or source information
• Identify opportunities for ProPublica to use AI to develop best use cases, such as parsing large troves of information
• Share relevant documentation and code, as well as AI best practices, with the newsroom and as public open-source releases
• Shape best practices for building values-aligned AI tools in the newsroom
• Work with some of the best journalists on the planet on some of the biggest and most innovative projects in investigative and data journalism
• Regularly connect with other fellows in the program who are working on related projects at independent newsrooms across the country

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in or with a newsroom, civic tech group or public-interest technology organization
• Experience handling sensitive or privacy-preserving data
• A track record of open-source contributions or documentation

Benefits

The salary range for this full-time position is $140,000-$160,000 per year and includes benefits