2013-07-17: Job: Sr Infographics & Datavisualization Specialist, MSNBC

About Us

NBCUniversal is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks.

It is the policy of NBCUniversal and NBCUniversal's affiliated businesses to consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy) sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status or other characteristics protected by law.

MSNBC is the premier cable destination for in-depth analysis of daily headlines, insightful political commentary and informed perspectives – 24/7. MSNBC defines news for the next generation with world-class reporting and a full schedule of live news coverage, political analysis and awardwinning documentary programming – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. MSNBC’s home on the Internet is tv.msnbc.com.

Role/Purpose

The MSNBC cable channel is expanding its digital design team capabilities to develop and enhance editorial graphics delivering a rich content offering online, focusing on infographics, data visualizations and data journalism. As the Senior Infographics and Data Visualization Specialist you will have a unique opportunity to define, design and execute on editorial infographics and data visualization content for MSNBC's website based on collaboration with the editors and managers.

The Senior Specialist will be responsible for the design and creation of infographics, data dashboards, data visualization multimedia and online interactives using information sources from a wide array of contributors, services & databases. Every project will be different and present a new opportunity to creatively depict and communicate data in visual form to significantly improve the MSNBC data journalism & infographics offering.

Additionally, this role will be responsible for design relating to day to day operations and enhancement activities as needed. This role reports to the Director of Design, MSNBC.

The ideal candidate should have strong communication skills and the ability to work as part of a team in a rapidly changing priorities landscape.

Responsibilities

Working as a member of the MSNBC digital design & development team, collaboratively working with the editorial team to identify the best opportunities to use visualizations across the portfolio of stories and features. Some will be short term quick fixes, some will be longer and more involved.

• Collaborating with each editor to creatively develop a topic idea into a detailed concept that is useful, current, interesting, creative and an appropriate infographic to contribute to the story or feature in question.
• Contribute to internal brainstorms with well-reasoned insights and executable concepts through inspiration, sketches and mocks.
• Use data analysis, graphic design, and programming expertise and all appropriate graphics and technology tools to present data in ways that are accurate, accessible, appealing, innovative and, in many cases, interactive as well.
• Design, produce and QA infographics and/or data visualizations previous to deployment to a live environment.
• Execute interactive graphics that support a 'responsive' experience spanning mobile, tablet, web and potentially even large-scale installations (like a jumbotron display at a campaign rally or event).
• Serve as the MSNBC design ambassador and primary advisor on infographics and data visualization, providing consulting, advice and assistance to other areas of the organization when warranted.

Basic Qualifications

• Three to five years of work experience in infographics, design and interactive data visualization.
• Demonstrated experience applying design expertise to the depiction of data.
• Superior design and data visualization skills, as demonstrated by an extensive portfolio of data visualization and other relevant work.
• Expert knowledge of graphics and visualization tools such as Adobe CS5 Suite including Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Flash and presentation tools such as PowerPoint and Apple Keynote, and other industry standard design and data presentation tools.
• Demonstrated ability to take complex information and translate it for use in graphic or interactive web pieces.
• Advanced experience with current web standards-based HTML, CSS, and interactive tools such as JQuery or other Javascript-based code libraries.
• Experience with data analysis and data visualization, using tools such as SAS or SPSS, use of D3 libraries, jQuery, Protoviz, etc.
• Bachelor's Degree in information design, graphic design or related field or equivalent combination of work experience and education.

Eligibility Requirements

• Must be willing to work in New York
• Must be willing to submit to a background investigation
• Must have unrestricted work authorization to work in the United States

Desired Characteristics

• Advance knowledge of web related languages, dataviz libraries and db frameworks.
• Understanding of existing and emerging digital media technologies and how they apply to editorial organizations.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, analytical and problem solving
• Ability to handle both broad and detail-oriented work, achieving tangible results.
• Ability to change priorities, adjusting to current conditions.
• Ability to work well independently and to know when to include others.
• Willingness to learn new solutions and an attitude for innovation.

Application

Interested candidates must submit a resume/CV through nbcunicareers to be considered.