Hello,

I'm a Software Engineering Manager and experienced, pragmatic web developer, sometimes found wearing a Product hat.

I’ve spent most of my career around newsrooms, building systems and platforms that support the mission and business of journalism.

I’ve built nearly everything: CMSs, sites that serve tens of millions of readers, custom ad suites, Live Events platforms, recommendation engines, newsletter systems, paywalls, all kinds of adtech, and most importantly, small teams that get stuff done.

- Jason Goldstein

Get in Touch LinkedIn

Professional Highlights

Rennovating Scientific American

Director of Engineering

Followed some former colleagues from The Atlantic for a unique opportunity to renovate a storied science magazine. Our mandate is to completely transform the product and the business into a modern digital media company.
We've rebuilt the team and begun a series of complex migrations away from the ailing legacy codebase.
Within 1 year we'll have replaced the entire technology and product suite, and aim to boost every aspect of the business: digital subscriptions, programmatic ads, direct ads, and audience reach.

Nearly 10 Years at The Atlantic

Full-Stack Developer » Senior Developer » Engineering Manager » Senior Engineering Manager

Created the first dedicated “Revenue Team” focused on advertising and other B2B businesses.
Hired and coached engineers, built one of the most effective teams in the company. Co-owned the roadmap and worked with stakeholders to support all aspects of The Atlantic's B2B businesses: programmatic revenue, direct sold advertising, Live Events.
Built some of the most sophisticated yield technology in the industry: a state of the art injector designed for AB testing, an automation layer on top of the Google Ad Manager API that eliminated entire categories of manual tuning and costly human error, while shuffling inventory around to capture the highest wholistic value between programmatic and direct (up to 42% increase in programmatic revenue).
Advocate for the Reader Experience. Key leader in site speed, privacy/compliance, and ensuring our ads were minimally intrusive. Championed the notion that it’s possible to improve UX and revenue at the same time if you're smart about it.
Contributed to nearly every aspect of the product organization over the years, from leading the early responsive design implementations to newsletters and the first iteration of the paywall. Helped design hiring processes, Agile norms as the first function-specific team, and kicked off The Next Frontend—a collaborative cross-team process to ship a fast and scalable new frontend architecture.

And before...

Journalism Major at Mizzou, with an emphasis on design and publishing. Newsroom Developer at the Kansas City Star. A brief stint at the shop that invented Django (Mediaphormedia) before it was shut down. I coach Django Girls, and am a big advocate for helping newcomers into the field.

Technical Experience

10+ years Python, Django, with Django Rest Framework/PyTest/Postgres/MySQL/Redis etc etc.
10+ years classic frontend. HTML/CSS/JS including ES6+ and the full capabilities of the browser.
7+ years Node. Express.js, Next.js. Big fan of simple build tools like ESBuild and Rollup.
5+ years React. CSS Modules seem like a good compromise between classic Sass and CSS-in-JS. Always use Prettier.
Works closely with Ops and Data Engineers but not an expert. Capable enough to run personal apps on a Linode (nginx, supervisor, postgres). Will tinker in Docker/Github Actions etc.
SEO, a11y, analytics, consent management, and given my adtech background I'm always game to talk Prebid/GPT and doing Bad Things™ with iframes.

Management Experience

Built and Managed Agile teams ranging from 2-6 people with occassional “guest stars.” Fostered collaborative cultures that emphasized ownership and teaching. The AdTech team was also called “The Mint” and often described as “sharing one giant brain.”
Full co-ownership of roadmaps, working with stakeholders to interrogate problems and find practical ways to move the needle. Periodically played the role of Product Manager.
Variably hands on depending on the needs of the team.
Designed and tuned fact-based hiring processes that was both accurate and a positive experience for candidates.
Grew talent! Constantly created opportunities for ownership and cross-training. Helped one developer evolve from her first programming job to Senior Engineer.
And of course, endless project scoping, ticket-writing, RFCs, documentation, presentations, and all the other things that help build a deep shared understanding across the team and our stakeholders.

Philosophy

Technology

Learn the business and customer needs exceptionally well.
Pick stable, practical tools that will last the test of time, and use them for the things they’re good at.
Obsess over making systems approachable. Code with a low barrier to contribution means faster onboarding, a good place for less experienced developers to learn, and a place where Senior contributors can move fast and deliver imapct rapidly.

Management

I like the idea Servant Leadership. So much of the job is about setting people (and team as a whole) up to win.
Everything is built on trust and competence. Without both you're in trouble.
Process is a tool. High-functioning teams adapt it to their needs.
The most effective teams are ones that focus on getting useful work done in an orderly fashion. Practice honest, blameless retrospectives, never take a burndown chart too seriously, and when things go wrong, find an effective path forward in good faith.
We've learned from experience that chaos is a choice. You can avoid it with thoughtful planning, keeping tech debt under control, and managing risk.
We can have flexibility, keep a deliberate pace, be family-friendly, and we'll get more done faster in the mid/long term as a result.

Semi-Frequently Asked Questions

Who are you as a person?

I live in Washington, D.C. with my wife and beagle. I'm a serious coffee-drinker, avid reader, live music afficianado, and trying to perfect baking pita bread to go with my homemade falafel and tzatziki.

Got any musical recommendations?

Now we're talking! Metric's newest album, Formentera absolutely rocks. I'm also listening to an alt-folk band called Good Old War that I discovered when they opened for Josh Ritter, and Ina Forsman, a Finnish blueswoman.

What's the deal with advertising?

Here's the thing: there's never been a point in history where it's possible bring quality journalism to a mass audience without ads. Subscriptions are great, but newsrooms are so expensive to operate that in order to reach outside a small elite group, you wind up needing to complement them with advertising.

That said, the way digital advertising has played out leaves a lot to be desired. AdTech people on the publisher side often get into it because they care a great deal about UX, privacy, and performance. It's possible to improve these things—quite a lot in some cases—if you learn how the sausage is made.

Can we see the beagle?

Of course! This is Ziggy.