Investigative Data Engineer
About Canada's National Observer
Canada's National Observer CNO) is an independent digital news site founded in 2015. CNO covers Canada's changing climate from newsrooms in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, with more than 35,000 articles published.
In 2025, CNO developed a reporting tool, Civic Searchlight.
About Civic Searchlight
Civic Searchlight is a daily-refreshed, searchable transcript database covering more than 600 Canadian municipal councils, with map and timeline views and direct links back to source video. It's used by journalists at every major media organization, as well as researchers, government departments, universities and advocacy groups, and has already been nominated for some of Canada’s most prestigious journalism prizes — including the National Newspaper Award for Innovation in Journalism and the CJF-Hinton Prize for AI Safety Reporting.
Job Description
We are looking to supercharge Civic Searchlight with new capabilities, and we need someone with the data skills to deliver them. This will require a high level of familiarity with software development and data engineering.
This job will involve a great deal of collaboration with our Technology and Democracy reporter, our Technical Lead and our editor-in-chief, all of whom are responsible for different sides of Civic Searchlight, so people skills will serve you well.
Key Responsibilities
Develop and maintain features for our flagship application Civic Searchlight for investigative journalism and other use cases
Discover new data sources and build pipelines to integrate them with existing infrastructure
Implement rigorous monitoring and testing procedures so the database stays reliable as coverage grows
Help build new tools on top of the database, including improved search, alerts, automated summaries and AI-assisted features
Contribute to architectural decisions as we move from prototype-scale to production infrastructure
What we’re looking for
Strong data engineering skills, including designing and maintaining pipelines from messy sources
Experience with Python, Javascript, Svelte and SQL
Experience with automated testing and continuous integration
Comfortable developing collaboratively using git
Resourceful – willing to take initiative and dig into unfamiliar problems with a track record of getting them done
A bigger-picture thinker who can connect engineering decisions to journalistic and public-interest outcomes
Bonus: experience with speech-to-text models, LLMs, cloud infrastructure
Preferred start date June 8, 2026
How to apply
Please submit your resume to the Bamboo HR link and respond to the four questions.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Apply To This Job
Canada's National Observer CNO) is an independent digital news site founded in 2015. CNO covers Canada's changing climate from newsrooms in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, with more than 35,000 articles published.
In 2025, CNO developed a reporting tool, Civic Searchlight.
About Civic Searchlight
Civic Searchlight is a daily-refreshed, searchable transcript database covering more than 600 Canadian municipal councils, with map and timeline views and direct links back to source video. It's used by journalists at every major media organization, as well as researchers, government departments, universities and advocacy groups, and has already been nominated for some of Canada’s most prestigious journalism prizes — including the National Newspaper Award for Innovation in Journalism and the CJF-Hinton Prize for AI Safety Reporting.
Job Description
We are looking to supercharge Civic Searchlight with new capabilities, and we need someone with the data skills to deliver them. This will require a high level of familiarity with software development and data engineering.
This job will involve a great deal of collaboration with our Technology and Democracy reporter, our Technical Lead and our editor-in-chief, all of whom are responsible for different sides of Civic Searchlight, so people skills will serve you well.
Key Responsibilities
Develop and maintain features for our flagship application Civic Searchlight for investigative journalism and other use cases
Discover new data sources and build pipelines to integrate them with existing infrastructure
Implement rigorous monitoring and testing procedures so the database stays reliable as coverage grows
Help build new tools on top of the database, including improved search, alerts, automated summaries and AI-assisted features
Contribute to architectural decisions as we move from prototype-scale to production infrastructure
What we’re looking for
Strong data engineering skills, including designing and maintaining pipelines from messy sources
Experience with Python, Javascript, Svelte and SQL
Experience with automated testing and continuous integration
Comfortable developing collaboratively using git
Resourceful – willing to take initiative and dig into unfamiliar problems with a track record of getting them done
A bigger-picture thinker who can connect engineering decisions to journalistic and public-interest outcomes
Bonus: experience with speech-to-text models, LLMs, cloud infrastructure
Preferred start date June 8, 2026
How to apply
Please submit your resume to the Bamboo HR link and respond to the four questions.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Apply To This Job