WLKY - Chief Engineer

WLKY, the CBS affiliate in Louisville KY is seeking a Chief Engineer to lead the technical operation and continued modernization of a television station. Reporting to the General Manager, this role is a member of the station leadership team and is accountable for the reliability, safety, compliance, and performance of the systems and facilities that support broadcast, news, production, transmission, and digital distribution. The Chief Engineer partners across the station and with Hearst Television teams to keep service dependable today and plan for what comes next. The right candidate will be a proven leader with the ability to motivate teams and build a culture of excellence.

• Lead, coach, and develop the station’s engineering team, including staffing, scheduling, 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.
• Use approved AI tools, where appropriate, to support technical research, summarize logs or documentation, identify workflow improvement opportunities, and organize maintenance or project information; verify outputs before use and follow company requirements for confidential, employee, and operational data.
• Review significant technical incidents, identify root causes, document corrective actions, and apply lessons learned to improve reliability.

• At least 7 years of progressively responsible experience in television broadcast engineering, media technology, or a closely related technical field, including experience leading or supervising technical staff.
• Working knowledge of television broadcast systems, RF transmission, studio and newsroom technologies, automation, IP-based media workflows, and applicable FCC and EAS requirements.
• Experience planning technical projects, managing budgets and vendors, prioritizing equipment lifecycle needs, and coordinating work across departments.
• Ability to troubleshoot complex systems, make sound decisions under deadline pressure, and explain technical issues to both technical and non-technical colleagues.
• Ability to provide support during live operations and occasional nights, weekends, holidays, or emergencies as station needs require.
• Education, training, or experience in broadcast engineering, electrical engineering, information technology, electronics, or a related field. Hearst Television will consider a college degree, trade school diploma, professional certificates, military training, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience with broadcast automation, IP video and audio, streaming, cloud or hybrid media systems, cybersecurity practices, emergency planning, and relevant certifications such as SBE is valued.
• Related military experience will be considered.

At Hearst Television we tell stories every day. Stories about people of all backgrounds, perspectives, and identities. That’s why, behind the scenes, we believe in being an organization that fosters collaboration and open communication, ensuring that the content we create is authentic, accurate, and connected to the communities we serve.