Chief Engineer

Hearst Television · Birmingham

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Chief Engineer 

WVTM, the NBC and CBS affiliates in Birmingham, Alabama “The Magic City” is seeking a Chief Engineer. The successful candidate will lead a team and demonstrate the ability to organize, plan, manage, document and complete assignments within a live broadcast environment. You will work in collaboration with the other department heads and directly oversee the daily operation of the station. We are looking for someone with experience in broadcast excellence and teamwork, with a passion for serving the local community, ready to embrace the challenges and opportunities of our ever-evolving industry. The ideal candidate must excel in motivating and working with a high-energy team, enthusiastic about collaborating with all departments, integrating AI into solutions and workflow, focused on the future of our industry. Candidate should demonstrate success in budgeting, capital planning and personnel management. This position reports directly to the General Manager and partners with Hearst Television leadership.   

What You’ll Do 

Engineering Leadership 

  • Lead, coach, and develop the station’s engineering team, including staffing, scheduling, AI adoption and implementation, performance feedback, technical training, and on-call coverage. 

  • Set priorities and service standards for engineering work, build strong working relationships across departments, and communicate technical issues and their operational impact clearly. 

  • Partner with the General Manager and station leaders to align technology plans with local journalism, production, business needs, and Hearst Television standards. 

Broadcast and Facility Operations 

  • Oversee the reliability, maintenance, troubleshooting, and lifecycle planning of broadcast, newsroom, production, automation, master control, media storage, network, streaming, and transmission systems. 

  • Maintain station transmission and RF facilities, studios, control rooms, remote production equipment, and critical infrastructure such as generators, UPS, and HVAC systems supporting technical operations. 

  • Provide engineering leadership during live programming, breaking news, severe weather, outages, and other urgent events; coordinate response, recovery, and follow-up. 

Compliance, Safety, and Resilience 

  • Ensure required FCC, EAS, and other applicable regulatory and industry obligations are met, with accurate records, scheduled testing, inspections, and timely corrective action. 

  • Maintain preventive maintenance, equipment inventory, technical documentation, safety practices, emergency preparedness, backup power, and disaster recovery plans. 

  • Coordinate with Hearst Television and enterprise IT partners on cybersecurity, network resilience, access practices, and business continuity for station systems. 

Planning and Modernization 

  • Develop and manage operating and capital budgets, equipment replacement plans, vendor relationships, service contracts, and engineering projects from proposal through implementation. 

  • Evaluate and implement improvements to IP-based workflows, automation, cloud or hybrid services, streaming, and other emerging technologies while protecting reliable on-air operations. 

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