Why developer Davis Shaver left national news for the Philly papers

Developer Davis Shaver left his job on the tech team of national news outfit Fusion for a gig at the Philly newspapers.
Shaver, 27, of Fairmount, said he wanted to impact the community around him.
“I missed local,” he wrote in a blog post. “I missed local so much. I walk around Philadelphia, and I see a city thriving while its least continue to struggle. … I believe that local news – and specifically, the tradition of newspaper journalism – is an essential and fundamentally good segment of our society.”
https://twitter.com/davisshaver/status/641232257945104384
Shaver’s title is “digital products/solutions lead” and he said they’re still working out what that means, but that he’ll be adding a tech angle to current and future projects.
“In the near-term, I will probably be largely focused on editorial, analytics, and audience development workflows,” he wrote to us.
The company is also hiring engineers and data scientists, so Shaver said to reach out to him if that interests you.
It definitely seems cool that a developer like Shaver, who’s worked at national media startups, is joining the Philly papers — it’s a place that hasn’t, at least historically, attracted those of Shaver’s ilk. Though it has made a few big leadership hires for its tech team, namely ex-Seattle Times product director Eric Ulken as its executive director of digital strategy and former Next City executive director Diana Lind as its director of digital audience development.
We’ve noticed the company doing more tech-forward stuff, like optimizing its daily headlines newsletter for mobile and developing digital-focused longform story templates like this one. And don’t forget the redesign that Happy Cog and Superfriend.ly are working on.