Jeff Balbien – Chief Technology Officer

Jeff Balbien is the chief technology officer for the Los Angeles Times.

Balbien joined the company in 2018 and was promoted to CTO in 2023. He oversees product, engineering, and UX research and design, leading the development and modernization of the tools, services and infrastructure powering the newspaper’s digital platforms. This includes the launch and continued development of integral systems like Graphene CMS and Media Desk, websites, mobile apps, syndication services and a modern subscription platform. In this role, he works with the newsroom, advertising and marketing groups to help build and manage the many platforms and pieces of software that users engage with daily.

Before joining The Times, Balbien was the principal software engineer for NantHealth, developing APIs and integrations for the Precision Insights customer and order management portal. He was a core contributor to the company’s modern microservices architecture and led the technical integration between the Precision Insights portal and GPS Cancer® platform.

Prior to that, Balbien spent several years at NantMobile, developing and productizing a cutting-edge recognition platform enabling 2D image, 3D object and live TV recognition from a mobile device. He helped lead development of the iD platform, a suite of APIs, SDKs and content management tools enabling developers to use the company’s technology in their own applications. In 2012, Balbien and the NantMobile team partnered with The Times to launch a mobile augmented reality experience for coverage of the Summer Olympics.

Balbien was also one of the founding employees of Bestcovery.com, a site that helps consumers select products and services, overseeing product development of the company’s platform.

Balbien holds a degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.