How to Apply to Muckrack

8 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 10 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Muck Rack is a fully remote-first PR software company — no central office, hires distributed across US, Canada, UK, and Poland.
  • The 2022 Susquehanna Growth Equity round of $180M shifted the company from pure bootstrap to growth-equity expectations; velocity and efficiency now matter alongside quality.
  • Greenhouse is the ATS; apply at boards.greenhouse.io/muckrack and expect structured panels with written scorecards.
  • The core moat is journalist trust and article-surfaced search; candidates who dismiss that framing tend to fare poorly.
  • Competition from Cision, Meltwater, Prowly, Propel, Notified, and Signal AI is real and commoditization pressure on the PR software category is a live business risk.
  • Engineering stack is Python, Django, React, AWS, and Elasticsearch/OpenSearch — cloud-native, search-heavy, not exotic.
  • Expect three to six weeks from application to offer, with take-home exercises scoped to a few hours and Zoom-only interviews.
  • Culture is low-ego, writing-first, and async-by-default — strong written communication is a gating competency.

About Muckrack

Muck Rack is a public relations (PR) software platform headquartered in New York City, founded in 2009 by Gregory Galant (CEO) and Lee Semel. The company's trajectory is unusual in modern SaaS: it was bootstrapped for roughly the first thirteen years of its existence, growing revenue-funded before accepting its first outside institutional capital in July 2022 — a $180 million growth equity investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity that reportedly valued the company north of $1 billion. That is a bootstrap-to-unicorn story, not a venture-capital story, and the difference matters when you evaluate the culture. Founders retained significant control, the company was already profitable, and the growth equity round funded expansion rather than survival. The product suite centers on a journalist database of roughly 350,000+ journalists that is searchable by beat, publication, social presence, and — the differentiator most journalists respect — actual recent articles they have written. Around that core sit media monitoring (global news, broadcast, podcasts, social), press release distribution, reporting and analytics, and a PR-specific CRM workflow. The December 2023 acquisition of Connectively (the former HARO service that Cision had sunset) extended Muck Rack's footprint into journalist-request matching. Headcount is roughly 350+ employees, fully remote-first across the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Poland. Post-COVID there is no central office; the New York address remains the nominal headquarters for legal and tax purposes, but there is no expectation of in-office attendance. Engineering is concentrated in the US and Poland, and the stack is Python, Django, React, AWS, and search infrastructure built on Elasticsearch/OpenSearch. Honest framing: the PR software category is under commoditization pressure, Cision (owned by Platinum Equity via Gannett's PR Newswire lineage) remains the dominant legacy incumbent, Meltwater is the global alternative, and a long tail of challengers — Prowly (Semrush), Propel PRM, Notified, Agility, Prezly, Signal AI, Brandwatch — competes for the same buyers. Muck Rack's positioning is "the platform journalists actually respect," which is a real moat but also a narrative Muck Rack has to keep re-earning. Candidates should understand that growth equity ownership raises the stakes on revenue growth and efficiency versus the prior bootstrap era.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Apply through the Greenhouse-hosted careers site at boards

    Apply through the Greenhouse-hosted careers site at boards.greenhouse.io/muckrack — this is the single source of truth for open roles; third-party listings lag.

  2. 2
    Expect a recruiter screen of 25 to 30 minutes focused on remote work fit, motiva

    Expect a recruiter screen of 25 to 30 minutes focused on remote work fit, motivation for Muck Rack specifically, and salary expectations (Muck Rack publishes bands for US roles).

  3. 3
    For engineering and product roles, the next stage is a hiring manager conversati

    For engineering and product roles, the next stage is a hiring manager conversation covering recent projects, technical depth, and how you handle ambiguity in a distributed team.

  4. 4
    A take-home assignment or live technical exercise follows for engineering candid

    A take-home assignment or live technical exercise follows for engineering candidates — typically Python/Django-flavored for backend, React/TypeScript for frontend; scoped to a few hours, not a multi-day project.

  5. 5
    Expect a cross-functional panel of three to four interviews covering technical c

    Expect a cross-functional panel of three to four interviews covering technical collaboration, product sense, and culture alignment; panels are conducted via Zoom and scheduled asynchronously across time zones.

  6. 6
    For go-to-market roles (sales, customer success, marketing), expect role-plays o

    For go-to-market roles (sales, customer success, marketing), expect role-plays or mock calls against a realistic PR-buyer persona — demonstrate that you understand the journalist-versus-PR-pro dynamic.

  7. 7
    A final conversation with a senior leader or executive closes the loop; for seni

    A final conversation with a senior leader or executive closes the loop; for senior hires this is often with Gregory Galant or a functional VP.

  8. 8
    Reference checks are standard and thorough

    Reference checks are standard and thorough — Muck Rack's PR-industry roots mean references matter and the community is small enough that backdoor references happen.

  9. 9
    Offers include transparent compensation ranges, remote-work stipend, equity for

    Offers include transparent compensation ranges, remote-work stipend, equity for most roles (the 2022 round created a real equity story), and health benefits calibrated by country.

  10. 10
    Total timeline runs three to six weeks from application to offer; expect slower

    Total timeline runs three to six weeks from application to offer; expect slower cycles around US holidays and the August PR-industry slowdown.

Resume Tips for Muckrack

recommended

Lead with outcomes that map to Muck Rack's worldview: journalist relationships b

Lead with outcomes that map to Muck Rack's worldview: journalist relationships built, earned-media coverage secured, product adoption driven, or system reliability improved — quantify wherever honest.

recommended

For engineering roles, foreground Python and Django experience; React and TypeSc

For engineering roles, foreground Python and Django experience; React and TypeScript on the frontend; and any search infrastructure work (Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, ranking, relevance tuning) because that is core to the journalist database.

recommended

Show experience shipping in a fully remote distributed team — async communicatio

Show experience shipping in a fully remote distributed team — async communication, written documentation, and ownership without daily in-person supervision are not decorative skills here, they are the operating model.

recommended

For PR, communications, or marketing roles, name the journalist-outreach and ear

For PR, communications, or marketing roles, name the journalist-outreach and earned-media work specifically; Muck Rack's own team lives in the product and will notice generic PR resumes.

recommended

For sales and customer success, emphasize SaaS experience with PR, comms, or mar

For sales and customer success, emphasize SaaS experience with PR, comms, or marketing buyers; retention metrics and expansion ARR carry weight given growth-equity expectations.

recommended

Call out experience with AWS, containerization, and modern CI/CD — the engineeri

Call out experience with AWS, containerization, and modern CI/CD — the engineering stack is cloud-native and pipelines matter.

recommended

If you have data or analytics depth (SQL, dbt, Snowflake-class warehouses, repor

If you have data or analytics depth (SQL, dbt, Snowflake-class warehouses, reporting product work), highlight it; reporting and analytics is a strategic surface area for the product.

recommended

Keep the resume one to two pages, plain ATS-friendly formatting, standard sectio

Keep the resume one to two pages, plain ATS-friendly formatting, standard section headings — Greenhouse parses reliably but custom layouts still trip it up.

recommended

Include a short cover note or Greenhouse summary field that names Muck Rack's mi

Include a short cover note or Greenhouse summary field that names Muck Rack's mission and one specific product or feature you have opinions on; generic applications are visible.

recommended

Link a GitHub, portfolio, or writing sample where relevant — for a company that

Link a GitHub, portfolio, or writing sample where relevant — for a company that indexes journalists, written communication is a signal.

ATS System: Greenhouse

Muck Rack uses Greenhouse as its applicant tracking system, with public job postings hosted at boards.greenhouse.io/muckrack. Greenhouse is a structured-interview ATS favored by venture- and growth-stage companies; it parses PDF and DOCX resumes reliably, supports scorecards and interview kits, and integrates with LinkedIn, DocuSign, and most HRIS systems. Muck Rack's growth equity stage and distributed hiring footprint make Greenhouse's structured workflow a natural fit.

  • Submit resumes as PDF or DOCX with standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills) — Greenhouse's parser handles both but avoids multi-column and graphic-heavy layouts.
  • Fill every optional field in the Greenhouse application including LinkedIn URL, website, and custom questions; recruiters filter on these fields.
  • Use exact keyword matches from the job description where honest — Greenhouse search is literal, not semantic.
  • Answer demographic and voluntary self-identification questions at your discretion; they are not visible to hiring managers and do not affect screening.
  • Upload a cover letter in the designated field rather than appending to the resume — it is surfaced separately to the hiring team.
  • If you are referred, ensure the referrer submits through the Greenhouse referral flow before you apply so attribution is captured.
  • Do not reapply to the same role within ninety days unless your profile has materially changed — Greenhouse flags duplicates.

Interview Culture

Interviews at Muck Rack are conducted entirely over Zoom, scheduled across multiple time zones, and organized around Greenhouse scorecards that require interviewers to submit written feedback against named competencies before discussing the candidate. That structure is deliberate: it reduces recency bias in a distributed panel where interviewers rarely meet in person. Expect the conversations to be direct, relatively informal in tone, and grounded in real work rather than brain teasers or puzzle questions. Technical interviews for engineering lean practical — code reviews, system design framed around search, ranking, or data pipelines, and discussions of trade-offs you made on past projects. Take-homes are scoped to a few hours and Muck Rack is explicit that candidates should not spend a weekend on them. For product, design, and go-to-market roles, expect artifact-based conversations: walk through a specific launch, a specific account save, a specific campaign. Culturally, the company describes itself as low-ego, writing-first, and biased toward asynchronous decisions. Senior engineers and product leaders expect candidates to push back and ask hard questions about the product and the roadmap. The PR-industry roots show up in a respect for clear communication — rambling or jargon-heavy answers land worse than a concise "I don't know, here is how I would find out." Remote-first isolation is a real challenge the company acknowledges, and interviewers will test whether you have tools and habits for working without co-located teammates.

What Muckrack Looks For

  • Self-directed operators who can own outcomes across time zones without daily supervision — remote-first is the job, not a perk.
  • Strong written communication; async decisions live in writing and sloppy writing costs the team real time.
  • Genuine curiosity about journalism, media, and the PR profession — the product serves both sides of the pitch and you will see both worlds daily.
  • Bias toward shipping and iteration over architectural perfection; Muck Rack's bootstrapped heritage favors pragmatic velocity.
  • Comfort with growth-equity-stage expectations: metrics matter, efficiency matters, and the company is not in an infinite-runway posture.
  • Technical depth in Python, Django, React, AWS, or search for engineering hires; category depth in PR/comms for go-to-market hires.
  • Empathy for the journalist user — the product's moat is journalist trust, and cynical or extractive framings of that relationship are a red flag.
  • Resilience under PR-industry cyclicality; budget swings during macro downturns are real and leadership is candid about them.
  • Willingness to work across Poland, UK, Canada, and US time zones with meeting-window flexibility.
  • Track record of working in small, cross-functional teams where titles are less important than impact.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Muck Rack fully remote, or is New York the expected location?
Muck Rack is fully remote-first across the US, Canada, UK, and Poland. New York is the nominal legal headquarters but there is no central office and no in-office attendance expectation. Candidates should be comfortable with a distributed, async-by-default operating model.
What ATS does Muck Rack use and where do I apply?
Muck Rack uses Greenhouse. Apply at boards.greenhouse.io/muckrack, which is the canonical source for open roles. LinkedIn and third-party listings typically lag the Greenhouse board by a few days.
Is Muck Rack VC-backed?
Not in the traditional sense. Muck Rack was bootstrapped from 2009 until July 2022, when Susquehanna Growth Equity invested approximately $180 million in a single round reported to value the company north of $1 billion. That is growth equity, not venture capital, and the company was already profitable at the time of the round.
Who are Muck Rack's main competitors?
The legacy incumbent is Cision (which owns PR Newswire and historically owned HARO before sunsetting it in 2024). The global alternative is Meltwater. A long tail of challengers includes Prowly (owned by Semrush), Propel PRM, Notified (Intrado), Agility PR Solutions, Prezly, Signal AI for monitoring, and Brandwatch. The PR software category faces real commoditization pressure and Muck Rack competes on journalist trust and modern product UX.
What happened with HARO and Connectively?
Cision acquired HARO in 2010 and operated it for years before sunsetting the service in 2024. Muck Rack acquired Connectively, the HARO successor, in December 2023 and integrated it into its journalist-request workflow. For PR professionals and source-seeking journalists, Muck Rack's Journalist Requests product is now the practical successor to HARO.
What is the engineering stack?
Primary languages and frameworks are Python and Django on the backend, React and TypeScript on the frontend, with AWS for infrastructure and Elasticsearch or OpenSearch for the journalist database search. The stack is deliberately mainstream rather than exotic; search relevance and data pipeline work are the most interesting surface areas.
How long does the interview process take?
Typically three to six weeks from application to offer, spanning a recruiter screen, hiring manager conversation, take-home or technical exercise, cross-functional panel, and a final leadership conversation. Timelines extend around US holidays and the August PR-industry slowdown.
Does Muck Rack hire in Poland?
Yes. Muck Rack has a meaningful engineering presence in Poland, and Polish-language workplace communication is common on teams based there. Hiring is through the same Greenhouse board with country-specific compensation and benefits.
How should I prepare for a product or go-to-market interview?
Come with specific artifacts — a launch you ran, an account you saved, a campaign you measured. Muck Rack's interviewers prefer concrete past-work conversations over hypothetical case studies. For GTM roles, demonstrate that you understand PR and communications buyers as a customer segment, not just generic SaaS pipeline mechanics.
What is the compensation philosophy?
Muck Rack publishes salary bands for US roles in Greenhouse postings and follows similar transparency in other countries where local norms allow. Most roles include equity; the 2022 growth equity round created a genuine equity story where previously the bootstrap structure limited employee ownership. Benefits are calibrated by country.
Is the bootstrap culture still present after the Susquehanna round?
Partially. The founders remained in place, the company was profitable at the time of the round, and many of the bootstrap-era hiring and operating habits persist. But growth equity investors expect revenue growth and capital efficiency, so velocity expectations have risen. Candidates should expect a culture that is more disciplined than a typical early-VC startup but more aggressive than pure bootstrap.
What are the biggest business risks I should know about?
PR software commoditization, aggressive incumbent competition from Cision and Meltwater, PR-industry budget cyclicality during macro downturns, and the execution risk of integrating Connectively and continuing to defend the journalist-trust moat. Leadership is candid about these in interviews.

Open Positions

Muckrack currently has 10 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 10 open positions at Muckrack

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Sources

  1. Muck Rack Careers on Greenhouse —
  2. Muck Rack Raises $180 Million from Susquehanna Growth Equity —
  3. Muck Rack Acquires Connectively from Cision —
  4. Muck Rack Company Page on LinkedIn —
  5. Cision Sunsets HARO Service in 2024 —
  6. Susquehanna Growth Equity Muck Rack Investment Announcement —
  7. Muck Rack Product Overview —
  8. Greenhouse Applicant Tracking System Overview —
  9. Gregory Galant Muck Rack Founder Profile —
  10. Muck Rack Engineering Blog —