Join the future of news
We’re on a mission to deliver riveting storytelling for all of America. At The Washington Post, you’ll help reinvent news. Our work is driven by a deep investigative spirit and enhanced by innovation to bring audiences closer to the stories that matter most.
About Our Team
The Washington Post is powered by the passion and talent of our people. It takes all of us to reinvent news. Beyond our award-winning Newsroom and Opinions teams, we work across many departments, including Brand & Events, Communications, Customer Care, Engineering & Product, Finance, Human Resources, Legal, Marketing & Advertising, Print Operations, and Sales.
Why This Role Matters
The Monetization Identity Team is a crucial platform engineering team at The Washington Post. We are the authoritative source for user identity, owning the definition, authentication, authorization, and management of user data and consent across all Washington Post products and platforms. Our identity platform is foundational, powering critical business capabilities like subscriptions, personalization, privacy compliance, and content access for millions of users interacting across our web and mobile experiences.
The team is responsible for external user identity, authorization, account preferences, first-party user data, and newsletter enrollments for WashingtonPost.com. We collaborate closely with Product, Privacy, Legal, Marketing, and other Engineering teams to deliver a consistent, secure, and seamless user experience.
This internship offers a unique opportunity to work alongside the Identity engineering team, contributing directly to our product roadmap. You will gain invaluable, hands-on experience by working on high-impact production systems that manage user authentication, subscriptions, data integrity, and privacy at scale. Under the mentorship of experienced engineers, you will contribute meaningful code improvements, develop a strong engineering discipline, cultivate system-level thinking, and gain a practical understanding of how large-scale, high-reliability platforms operate.
What Motivates You
- Solving complex, foundational engineering problems closely tied to user trust and platform reliability.
- A strong eagerness to learn how real-world systems operate at high scale.
- Valuing opportunities to work on production systems where security, data correctness, backward compatibility, and user impact are critical considerations.
How You’ll Support The Mission
You will support The Washington Post's mission by delivering high-quality engineering contributions to the Identity platform, specifically by:
- Building and maintaining reliable, secure backend services.
- Ensuring high standards for security and privacy in all engineering work.
- Collaborating effectively with teammates to ensure Identity systems scale safely and consistently across the organization.
The Skills And Experience You Bring
- Strong backend engineering fundamentals and experience working with APIs and relational databases.
- A security and privacy-conscious mindset, meticulous attention to detail, and a strong willingness to learn.
- Demonstrated ability to write reliable, maintainable code and collaborate effectively within a team environment.
- Highly Desirable: Experience with Java-based backend services, PostgreSQL data modeling, and RESTful APIs.
Interns are paid hourly and expected to work 35-40 hours per week.
Our internship program is based out of our D.C. office, so you are expected to be on-site for the summer and follow The Washington Post’s in-person work policy. We do not provide housing, but can suggest options upon request. You must be enrolled in a degree-seeking program at the time of submitting this application. We encourage you to apply if you are currently a student, regardless of your background or experience with engineering and/or journalism.
Foreign nationals can apply for internships. All work samples must be submitted in English. If selected, the required documentation to verify U.S. work authorization must be provided. The Post is unable to provide visa sponsorship for internships. If you have any questions, please reach out to life@washpost.com
We will review all applications and invite a subset of applicants to the next process, which includes live coding and interviews with team leads.
Our program provides a meaningful learning experience for engineers who support The Washington Post's mission. Our interns work directly with our full-time engineers on real production features.
Additionally, you'll be invited to exclusive events like our annual intern hackathon and lunch seminars from leaders across the company.
This internship is not a guarantee of a job at The Post. We have hired from our internship classes in the past, and we hope to continue this trend in the coming years. Note our internship program is not a binding contract — you can take a full-time job elsewhere or from your (or another!) team at The Post before the internship en
Collaboration makes us stronger. That’s why our offices are designed with open layouts, modern technology, and easy access to transportation. With certain exceptions for newsgathering and business travel, we work on-site five days a week.
Your story awaits. Apply today!
Learn more about The Post at careers.washingtonpost.com.
