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About This Role
\|Current USA TODAY Co. Employees\- Please ensure you are using our abbreviated process on the internal Careers site by logging into Dayforce through MyApps\|
USA TODAY Co., Inc. is a diversified media company with expansive reach at the national and local level dedicated to empowering and enriching communities. We seek to inspire, inform, and connect audiences as a sustainable, growth focused media and digital marketing solutions company. Through our trusted brands, including the USA TODAY NETWORK, comprised of the national publication, USA TODAY, and local media organizations, including our network of local properties, in the United States, and Newsquest, a wholly\-owned subsidiary operating in the United Kingdom, we provide essential journalism, local content, and digital experiences to audiences and businesses. We deliver high\-quality, trusted content with a commitment to balanced, unbiased journalism, where and when consumers want to engage. Our digital marketing solutions brand, LocaliQ, supports small and medium\-sized businesses with innovative digital marketing products and solutions. USA TODAY Co. open roles are featured on various external job boards. When applying to a position at USA TODAY Co., you should be completing an application on USA TODAY Co. Careers via Dayforce. Job postings directing you to complete an application on other external sites may not be valid. To connect with us, visit www.usatodayco.com
National Account Executive – Entertainment, Gaming, Interactive
Location: Role is Remote with some travel. Chicago, IL DMA preferred
About Us
We’re a major media organization operating a large network of news sites, including over 100 local newspapers, a unified national news platform, and a substantial sports and a substantial sports and lifestyle network. Our multimedia group, anchored by a portfolio of series, special projects, and daily content in news, sports, entertainment, lifestyle and more, drives millions of views and listens every month across our O\&Os, YouTube, social channels, streaming, podcast, and emerging platforms.
We’re seeking an Interactive Sales Executive with a proven track record in closing high\-value sponsorships and partnerships in entertainment and games to generate substantial revenue for our multimedia portfolio including our existing entertainment channel, puzzle site, and the broader PLAY experience. Creating and scaling successful brand partnerships across the entertainment and PLAY channels will be a key area of focus in this role. As well as driving significant revenue streams from direct\-sold or programmatic campaigns across digital, print, social, and events.
Role Overview
As our Interactive Account Executive, you will be responsible for driving significant net new revenue in your first by securing strategic brand deals, sponsorships, and custom advertising programs.
You’ll collaborate and ideate with editorial and creative multimedia team leaders from Entertainment and PLAY and your success will directly impact the growth and profitability of our multimedia portfolio, a key pillar of long\-term growth for our content division.
Key Responsibilities
1\. Revenue Generation \& Pipeline Management
a. Own end\-to\-end sales cycle to achieve significant net new revenue goals.
b. Identify, prospect, and cultivate relationships with key decision\-makers across multiple verticals such as Pharma, Financial Services, Entertainment, Gaming, Media, CPG, Technology \& Telecom and others.
c. Build a robust pipeline of brand partnerships, premium sponsorships, and custom advertising packages for our multimedia portfolio.
2\. Strategic Partnership Development
a. Develop compelling sponsorship opportunities in partnership with Entertainment and PLAY leveraging the scale of our multimedia portfolio.
b. Collaborate with cross\-functional content teams to craft integrated programs for both proactive, targeted pitches and RFP responses.
3\. Client Relationship Management
a. Serve as the primary point of contact for brand partners, nurturing long\-term relationships and maximizing recurring revenue streams.
b. Conduct client\-facing presentations, proposal development, and quarterly/annual business reviews to ensure partners see strong ROI.
c. Managing complex sales cycles, including presentations, negotiations, and contract closures.
4\. Market \& Product Insight
a. Stay ahead of digital advertising trends, sponsor needs, and industry developments (especially in the digital video ecosystem as it pertains to entertainment and games) including social media and influencer\-style content\-creator approaches)
b. Develop data\-motivated analysis and recommendations for quantifying opportunities.
c. Provide market intelligence to internal stakeholders, helping shape sponsorship packages, product enhancements, and editorial alignments.
5\. Performance Reporting \& Forecasting
a. Maintain accurate records of deal progress, revenue forecasts, and pipeline health in CRM systems.
b. Provide regular updates to senior leadership on sales progress, insights on market demand, and recommended strategies to reach revenue targets.
6\. Collaboration \& Team Leadership
a. Work closely with Sales, Account Management, Sales Strategy, Editorial, and Ad Operations teams to execute sold campaigns seamlessly.
b. Understanding client needs while identifying and developing new business opportunities with major advertisers.
Qualifications \& Experience
- Proven Sales Track Record: 2\+ years in digital media sales, sponsorship sales, or partnership development with a consistent record of closing high\-value, multimillion\-dollar deals.
- Industry Relationships: Established network of brand and agency contacts across Pharma, Financial Services, Entertainment, Gaming, Media, CPG, and Technology \& Telecom (additional verticals a plus).
- Strategic Selling \& Negotiation: Demonstrated ability to build custom sponsorship solutions, negotiate large contracts, and influence C\-level decision\-makers.
- Revenue Accountability: Comfortable owning a significant net new revenue responsibility.
- Digital Media Expertise: Familiarity with branded content, native advertising, integrated sponsorship packages, and performance metrics (CPM, CPA, brand lift).
- Strong Communication Skills: Exceptional presentation abilities, adept at creating proposals and delivering pitches.
- Analytical \& Results\-Driven: Competent using CRM systems, with data\-oriented approaches to pipeline management.
- Team Player: Able to collaborate with internal product, editorial, and marketing teams to craft innovative solutions that delight advertisers and resonate with audiences. Bridges sales with product, editorial, and marketing teams to deliver advertiser solutions that align with audience engagement.
- Willingness to Travel: Ability to meet clients and attend industry events as needed (estimated 20% travel).
What We Offer
- High\-Impact Opportunity: Spearhead major sponsorship deals for an established brand reaching over 140 million unique visitors monthly, with robust puzzle, and gaming, and entertainment verticals poised for rapid expansion.
- Competitive Compensation: Base salary plus aggressive commission/bonus structure aligned with your revenue achievements.
- Growth Trajectory: Play an integral role in evolving our new PLAY experience, shaping strategic partnerships and influencing product innovation.
- Supportive Team Culture: Collaborate with passionate, forward\-thinking colleagues in marketing, editorial, and product—focused on delivering engaging casual entertainment to a massive audience.
- Comprehensive Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401(k) with company match, unlimited paid time off with our MTO program, and opportunities for ongoing professional development.
Join us in powering the next big leap in interactive puzzles, casual gaming and entertainment as our Interactive Account Executive and help shape a new era of audience engagement across our expansive media network!
The annualized base salary for this role will range between $70,000 and $90,000\. OTE $133,000 – 150,000\. Base compensation is reflective of many factors, including, but not limited to, the market in which one lives/works, individual education level, skills, certifications and experience. Note: variable compensation is not reflected in these figures and based on the role, may be applicable.
\#LI\-SD1 \#LI\-REMOTE with travel
USA TODAY Co., Inc. is a proud equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a diverse workforce. As such, we will consider all qualified applicants for employment and do not discriminate in connection with employment decisions on the basis of an applicant or employee’s race, color, national origin, ethnicity, ancestry, citizenship status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, marital status, personal appearance (including height and weight), sexual orientation, family responsibilities, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy status (including childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), education, genetic characteristics or information, political affiliation, military or veteran status or other classifications protected by applicable federal, state and local laws in the jurisdictions where USA TODAY Co. employs employees. In addition, USA TODAY Co., Inc. will provide applicants who require a reasonable accommodation, as a result of an applicant’s disability or religion, to complete this employment application and/or any other process in connection with an individuals’ application for employment with USA TODAY Co., Inc. Applicants who require such accommodation should contact USA TODAY Co., Inc.’s Recruitment Department at Recruit@usatodayco.com. Applicants must be authorized to work in the applicable location. Applications from outside these regions will be removed from our system after submission.
Salary Context
This $70K-$90K range is below the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $100K across 15465 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 26,159 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 91% of the market. At USA TODAY Co., this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $166,983 based on 13,781 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $131,300. This role's midpoint ($80K) sits 52% below the category median. Disclosed range: $70K to $90K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Architect ($292,900). By seniority level: Entry: $76,880; Mid: $131,300; Senior: $227,400; Director: $244,288; VP: $234,620.
USA TODAY Co. AI Hiring
USA TODAY Co. has 6 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Positions span Remote, US, US, New York, NY, US. Compensation range: $52K - $114K.
Remote Work Context
Remote AI roles pay a median of $156,000 across 1,221 positions. About 7% of all AI roles offer remote work.
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 26,159 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 2,416 entry-level, 16,247 mid-level, 5,153 senior, and 2,343 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 7% of the market (1,863 positions). The remaining 24,200 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 28 roles); AI Architect ($292,900 median, 108 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 19 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 26,159 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (23,752), AI Software Engineer (598), AI Product Manager (594). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (2,416) are outnumbered by mid-level (16,247) and senior (5,153) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 2,343 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 7% of all AI roles (1,863 positions), with 24,200 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $184,000. Top-quartile roles start at $244,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $309,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $122,200. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Rag (16,749 postings), Aws (8,932 postings), Rust (7,660 postings), Python (3,815 postings), Azure (2,678 postings), Gcp (2,247 postings), Prompt Engineering (1,469 postings), Openai (1,269 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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