Digital Design/Development Intern

 San Francisco Chronicle Summer Digital Design/Development Internship

The San Francisco Chronicle is seeking motivated students and recent graduates interested in pursuing careers in visual, product and UI/UX design, visual storytelling and coding/development for journalism. 

The Chronicle’s design team is a multidisciplinary group responsible for elevating the newsroom’s most ambitious journalism. We are a diverse group of designers, illustrators, graphics/data reporters and developers of varied backgrounds. Our projects range from crafting design systems for lines of coverage to piecing together immersive storytelling approaches for longform narratives and investigative reports. Recent successes include an Online Journalism Award-winning project on the impact of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans on San Francisco’s Japantown and the extremely successful relaunch of our list of Top 100 Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area that we rebranded and redesigned with new product features and audience strategies. We also contributed to two investigations — “The Right to Remain Secret” and “Fast and Fatal” — that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 2025.

Our interns have worked on a variety of projects depending on their interests and emerging skillsets. A more coding-focused intern helped create tools to make it easier for other members of the team to produce bespoke, custom-coded projects. Another designed unique visualizations for a story on how winter storms impacted areas around Northern California’s Feather River. You may find yourself creating motion graphics, static and/or interactive information graphics, page designs or new components, such as a better video player over the course of your internship.

Prior interns have gone on to internships or full-time jobs at the Chronicle (and its sister publications or groups in Hearst Newspapers), The Pudding, the Seattle Times, the Texas Tribune, the New York Times and the Washington Post.

We welcome applicants of all backgrounds. 

Responsibilities

• Participate in brainstorming and design sprints for newsroom projects
• Execute assignments via reporting, writing, designing and/or coding as needed
• Communicate effectively with collaborators within the newsroom
• Manage the production process for your projects

Requirements

• Must be a college junior, senior or recent graduate at time of application
• Must have an interest in journalism and/or design demonstrated by coursework or practical experience at student publications or professional internships
• Must be able to work in the Chronicle’s San Francisco office at least three days a week.
• You should have a basic understanding of HTML and CSS.

Skills that we like

This is a list of skills that we would put to use on the design team. It’s impossible to be skilled at everything. We only expect you to do a couple of these. 

• Basic reporting and writing for accuracy, brevity and clarity
• News design techniques
• Visual, UI/UX and/or product design, including typography, color and grid
• Ability to use the Adobe Creative Suite and Figma
• Development experience with HTML, CSS, Javascript and React, with version management via Git and GitHub
• News tools such as ArchieML and AI2HTML
• Data reporting and analysis via Python (preferred) or R
• Data visualization via DataWrapper or D3
• Three.js
• Illustration
• Animation/motion
• Video
• Social media design

Internship details

• Interns are paid $19.18 per hour.
• Interns work 40 hours a week from Monday through Friday. We generally work from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Depending on news coverage needs, you may be occasionally asked to work nights or weekends.
• The summer internship is 12 weeks long. The exact start and end dates are slightly flexible, but, for the best experience, we want the majority of your time with us to sync up with the rest of the summer internship class. It typically begins in June and ends in August or September.
• In addition to feedback on your assignments, you will have a weekly check-in with your supervisor to talk through your work, your internship and your career goals.
• Based on your interests, we will match you with a mentor in the newsroom who will augment the feedback you receive from your supervisor. 

Application details

• Please send a resume, a cover letter explaining why you’re interested in this role and links to your portfolio and/or GitHub profile if applicable
• Also, in your cover letter or in a second document, please direct us to three projects that showcase what you consider to be your best or more interesting work. If the project is not immediately related to journalism or design, please explain what is special about the piece.
• If you have any questions, please contact Chronicle Creative Director Alex K. Fong at [email protected]
• Application Deadline is October 28, 2025

About The San Francisco Chronicle

The San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfchronicle.com) is the largest newspaper in Northern California and the second largest on the West Coast. Acquired by Hearst Corp. in 2000, The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 by Charles and Michael de Young and has been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence.

Our award-winning journalists provide insight into the people and events shaping the Bay Area, investigate wrongdoing and waste, and deliver the quickest and most reliable coverage of breaking news in Northern California.