Data Vis Writer

header image of the blog post saying "Datawrapper Data Vis Writer" on top of an image of the Datawrapper office

We at Datawrapper want to help everyone create better charts, maps, and tables. To achieve this, we offer a data visualization tool that individuals and organizations all over the world rely on to quickly and easily create beautiful visualizations for their online and printed publications.

But the more feature-rich our tool becomes, the better we need to explain in a smart way how Datawrapper can be helpful, and to whom. We’re looking for somebody who helps others to create better data visualizations with Datawrapper thanks to examples, inspiration, and how-tos.

We’re looking for a data vis writer to join our communications team, 4–5 days a week.

You can join remotely from the time zones around Berlin (GMT, CET, or EET) or get a desk in our Berlin office. We’re looking for someone who can start as soon as possible (August 2022 at the latest).

Screenshots of six blog posts with lots of data visualizations and figures.
Some of the blog posts about data viz principles on the Datawrapper blog

What you’ll be doing

You’ll use words to tell potential users, new users, and long-term users what they should know about Datawrapper and data visualization. You’ll work on a few or all of the following:

  • Social media: Post new blog posts and other valuable content on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and interact with our followers.
  • Feature announcements: Explain new Datawrapper features (and how best to use them) to existing and potential customers.
  • Weekly Data Vis Dispatch: Find the best data visualizations published in the last seven days and collect them to serve as inspiration for the community.
  • Help your coworkers prepare their Weekly Charts: support them in writing a well-structured article about a topic they’re interested in. Help them find the right words, maybe even help them to analyse their data and to improve their data visualizations for the article. (You, too, will write Weekly Charts from time to time!)
  • Website content: Keep our website up to date, and improve our copywriting.
  • Data vis articles: Explain principles and share your data vis takes.
  • Customer stories: Interview Datawrapper customers and publish their stories.
  • Newsletters: Put newsletters together that inform subscribers about the latest blog posts or Datawrapper features.

You’ll be part of our marketing efforts. But we don’t want you to write for SEO, we want you to write for people: conversationally, in a way that’s easy to understand and respectful of our reader’s time. Thanks to you, they’ll figure out as quick as possible how to be successful with Datawrapper, and with data visualization in general.

As a writer, you’ll work together with me, Lisa, the head of communication, and Rose, our writer who we hired last year. We’ll give you feedback (and I hope you’ll give us feedback too!) and brainstorm new tasks with you.

Parts of two maps and three charts (area charts and line chart) that look nice but are unreadable
Weakly Charts your potential coworkers created in the past few months.

Who are we looking for?

To make it worthwhile for you to apply, here are the must-haves:

  • You have great English writing skills. You love language. Grammar might not be important to others – but you care, deeply. You’ve already spotted a few mistakes in this blog post.
  • You’re excited about good communication. “They could have said that better,” is something you think often. When you look at our website, you can’t help but notice the phrasings that could be improved.
  • You’re tech-savvy. You don’t necessarily know how to code, but you can find your way around software you haven’t used before. What happens when you click on that icon? You simply try it out
  • You pay attention to detail and prefer to “measure twice, cut once”. You don’t like making mistakes that you could have prevented with the knowledge you already have. You’re thorough and careful, even if that means you’re slower than the fast-movers.
  • You’re self-organized. You’ll eventually be your own manager, deciding how to solve the problem in front of you, gathering information from different people, and scheduling meetings when needed.
  • You’re interested in data visualization. Datawrapper is a data visualization company. You’ll think and write about data vis a lot.

Nice-to-haves:

  • Data vis skills. You don’t need to be an expert in data vis when you’re starting out with us — you’ll learn a lot on the way. It helps to start with some skills and knowledge in that area, though.
  • Design skills. We’re a company that enables others to create beautiful charts. Our content should look beautiful too. If you have a design for aesthetics, then that’s a plus. (If not, be ready to learn about it.)
  • We’re curious what other skills, talents and hobbies you have. Are you a video pro? Or an amateur coder? Did you study graphic design back in the days? Do your friends say you’re great with people? Let us know. We’d love for you to work on the things you’re excited about.

What to expect from working at Datawrapper

A happy work life! Datawrapper team members appreciate a shared feeling of doing meaningful work, a high degree of freedom, helpful coworkers, and a nice work environment.

Laptop on a desk with the book "Data Feminism" on top and a little plant next to it.
If you’re into data visualization, you’ll like our office with its large library of data vis classics and data-vis-centric lunch conversations. We also (occasionally) organize a data vis book club.

What we believe in

  • People do a great job when they’re excited about something. Our head of customer success, Elana, fixes bugs herself; our developer Marten tried his hand on the support team; our CTO writes blog posts. We let people work on things they’re motivated to work on. (So please don’t apply if you’re not excited about writing!)
  • Few meetings. We try to keep meetings infrequent and short. Instead, we believe in written discussions, good meeting preparation, and short 1:1 check-ins.
  • Good work-life balance and flexibility. We let you set and revisit many deadlines yourself, and we don’t expect you to work overtime.
  • A kind and collaborative work environment. You’re not expected to excel from day one. We’ll work together closely and help each other out with whatever challenges come our way.

What you’ll get from us and this role

  • A salary in the ballpark of €40-55k for a five-day week and 30 days of vacation (24 days for a four-day week).
  • A yearly education budget of 2000 euros to visit conferences, hire consultants, pay for language courses, or buy books and online seminars that make you smarter (1600 euros for a four-day week).
  • The newest MacBook, a big external monitor, and whatever other hardware you need.
  • If you join us in our Berlin office: unlimited coffee, tea, and any sweets you like. Plus a big data vis library.
  • The flexibility to work from home or from the office — whatever you decide each morning.
  • Nice and talented coworkers.

In addition, you’ll learn how to create better data visualizations and become a Datawrapper expert. You’ll also get many insights into the world of product development and explore the life and culture of a friendly young software company.

What is Datawrapper?

Datawrapper’s tool enables people worldwide to build great charts, maps, and tables. We’re used by:

  • Print and online news publications like The New York Times, Quartz, SPIEGEL, and The Times;
  • News agencies like Reuters and The Associated Press;
  • Governmental institutions and NGOs like the United Nations, the European Commission, and the World Economic Forum;
  • Think tanks like KFF, CFR, and ECFR;
  • Financial institutions like Fitch Ratings and Moody’s;
  • Cities and municipalities like Madrid, London, and New York City;
  • And many more, including statistical offices, market research firms, and design agencies.
Datawrapper locator map in a printed newspaper. The map shows two islands and a marker "Site of boat fire"
We are proud to serve customers all around the world. Here’s a Datawrapper map in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times.

How to apply

Does all of this sound like something you’d like to do? Great! We’re looking forward to hearing from you. To find the best possible person for the job, we decided to give you three small tasks. Here are two of them:

Task 1: Website copywriting

On our website, we often use a content block containing a headline and a short text. You can find an example here (look out for “Understandable & accessible” or “Respects your visitors’ privacy”). Imagine you’re writing one of these content blocks to address data visualization designers working at small to mid-sized newspapers. They’ve never heard about Datawrapper, but have been creating online and print graphics for their publication for months or years; some on their own (they’re pretty stressed about it) and some in small teams. Explain how Datawrapper can help them and make them curious to learn more about our tool. You can find more inspiration on our website and especially here.

Task 2: Language skills

Find all the grammar and spelling mistakes in this very job post, from the beginning until the headline “What to expect from working at Datawrapper.” There may also be incorrect word choices sprinkled in. We write in American English.

The third task is about your skills in long(er)-form writing. To save you time, we’ll only ask you to work on that if we’re happy with your take on the first two tasks.

Please understand that we don’t have the time to answer emails that don’t mention these tasks. (If you’re strongly opposed to speculative work for applications, get in touch and we’ll work something out.) Besides the tasks, talk a bit about yourself and how your skills and experience could be a good fit for this job. An attached CV won’t hurt. Writing samples won’t either. And if you have questions for us, don’t hold back.

→ Send it all to jobs@datawrapper.de with the subject line “Data Vis Writer”

We hope you apply, especially if you’re from a group that’s underrepresented in our office. 

We’re excited to hear from you!

Lisa and the Datawrapper team