Senior Data Journalist

As Senior Data Journalist, you will build Imprint's data storytelling function from the ground up. This is a highly autonomous individual contributor role sitting at the intersection of data science and narrative journalism, the first of its kind at Imprint, and it calls for someone who can operate as a peer to the data science team, not just a consumer of what they hand off.

Working closely with data science, you will independently mine Imprint's payments, merchant, and card member data to surface stories that are credible, data-driven, and genuinely interesting, not promotional. This requires someone who can write production-grade SQL and dbt models themselves, design the analysis with statistical rigor, defend the methodology under scrutiny, and still land the story in clear, compelling prose. You'll set direction independently, hold a narrative strategy under competing priorities, and ship work consistently.

What Success Looks Like in the First 90 Days

• Built and operationalized a data room in partnership with the data science team, including the underlying SQL and dbt models needed to continuously mine and surface story candidates from Imprint's payments, merchant, and card member data

• Defined the core narrative pillars that will guide Imprint's data storytelling, grounded in the company's brand positioning and differentiated data position, with each pillar mapped to specific, defensible data sources and methodologies

• Developed an initial content calendar with proposed story formats and publishing cadence, and shipped at least one full story end to end, from raw data to published piece, demonstrating the full workflow

Responsibilities

• Write and produce data-driven stories that contribute meaningfully to public discourse around how people live and buy today

• Own Imprint's data storytelling function end-to-end, from writing your own SQL and dbt models to story identification, statistical analysis, and publication

• Independently design and execute the analytical approach for each story, including sampling methodology, statistical significance, and handling of outliers or data quality issues

• Partner with the data science team as a technical peer to build and maintain infrastructure for ongoing story mining across Imprint's proprietary data sets

• Propose and iterate on story formats, publishing cadence, and distribution approach

• Maintain editorial independence: push back on ad hoc data requests that fall outside the narrative strategy

• Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders, including communications, brand, product marketing, data science, and leadership, to share findings and determine the best ways to distribute stories

Qualifications

Required

• Demonstrated experience in data journalism, with a portfolio of data-driven stories that combine rigorous quantitative analysis and clear written narrative

• Advanced SQL and dbt skills, with real production experience building and maintaining data models, not just querying existing ones

• Working knowledge of statistics, including sampling, significance testing, and how to avoid common pitfalls in observational data, strong enough to defend a methodology under questioning

• Python or equivalent scripting ability for data transformation and analysis beyond what SQL alone can do

• Ability to independently QA your own work, build reproducible, version-controlled analyses that are retrospectively defensible if and when questioned, and maintain a high bar for quality and reliability with no analytics team backstopping you

• Strong writing and the ability to translate complex, technically rigorous data into compelling, accessible stories for a broad audience

• Track record of working independently to identify, develop, and publish stories without heavy direction

• Ability to hold a narrative strategy and push back constructively when requests fall outside of it

• Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where the function, and its technical infrastructure, is being built for the first time

Nice to Have

• Experience with dbt testing frameworks, data pipeline orchestration, or building analytics infrastructure from scratch

• Data visualization or graphic design skills

• Background in economics or applied statistics, or familiarity with consumer finance, payments, or related verticals

• Experience at a media outlet, think tank, nonprofit, or organization with an established data journalism function

Perks & Benefits

• Competitive compensation and equity packages

• Leading configured work computers of your choice

• Flexible paid time off