From Mizzou to Meta, Katie Yaeger blends creativity and strategy on a global scale
Katie Yaeger, BJ ’15, MA ’17, discovered her passion for blending creativity and strategy while at the Missouri School of Journalism. Now a content design manager at Meta, she supports internal teams in tooling, accessibility and internationalization, which enable designers to ship out experience for billions of users across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other platforms in Meta’s suite.
Originally aspiring to be a magazine editor, Yaeger honed her skills during her time as a student through Mizzou Student Media, like the campus newspaper The Maneater, and the School’s community centered paper the Columbia Missourian. She also gained experience in news editing at the Orange County Register and the Kansas City Star. Earning her undergraduate degree in journalism, she returned to Mizzou and earned her master’s degree in strategic communication.
Yaeger’s interest in news editing and journalism began to shift after taking Emerging Technologies in Journalism, a class recommended and taught by journalism professor Jim Flink. In this class, she worked as a digital content specialist for a news outlet, the Global Journalist. Working on analytics and social media, Yaeger’s interest in audience development was sparked.
She was motivated to deepen her experience in technology. She loved combining her creative side, cultivated by news editing and journalism, with strategic communication, building products and revenue streams. As a student, she learned new ways to leverage her skills in unexpected ways by taking advantage of other opportunities offered by the journalism school.
“As I went from journalism to strategic communication, I really figured out what I was interested in, what skills I have and the types of things I want to try,” Yaeger said. “I really appreciated that there were a lot of opportunities to learn, to fail, to learn quickly and pivot while at Mizzou.”
Part of what I really loved about Mizzou was being able to go to the Columbia Missourian or work with multiple journalists at Missouri Business Alert and all these different places to learn new things and new skills. And that’s something I’ve been able to do every day throughout my time here at Meta.
Katie Yaeger
Her motivation led her to propose and complete an independent study course with Flink working at Gistory, a startup that received funding from the School’s Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI), that is dedicated to summarizing locally sourced global news. Here she gained exposure to and interest in user experience design, as she worked on building an audience and a social media presence.
Later, as a graduate student, Yaeger worked at RJI as a research assistant with the Journalism Digital News Archive. She proposed new website structures, like menu labels, to improve user experience. This experience deepened her understanding of information architecture and how to design with the user in mind.
“Part of what I really loved about Mizzou was being able to go to the Columbia Missourian or work with multiple journalists at Missouri Business Alert and all these different places to learn new things and new skills. And that’s something I’ve been able to do every day throughout my time here at Meta,” Yaeger said.
During the summer between her first and second year of graduate school, she was offered a content design internship at Facebook. There, her intern manager encouraged her to apply the skills she had developed through her Mizzou experiences to the world of UX and technology.
Those opportunities to explore new ideas at Mizzou, combined with the mentorship of professors and internship at Facebook, paved the way for her career at Meta.
“One thing that interested me from the start about Meta is that we build the tools to help people share information at scale. Someone may share an article or tips and tricks, but I thought it was interesting how we are building the mechanism for doing that, to impact connection-building and the ability to make choices,” Yaeger said.
Yaeger returned to Meta full-time after earning her master’s degree in 2017. She started her career on a product team as a content designer, working to develop scalable business messaging solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses of all kinds.
“I was thinking about, what if you message a Facebook Page? What does that interaction look like for you as a consumer, and what does that look like for the business? How can we help small businesses be thoughtful about their Internet presence and help them save time? These are interesting problems to solve, and it’s been a neat space to be part of and build the future of a lot of this stuff,” Yaeger said.
The work was especially meaningful to Yaeger, whose parents operated a small business in Atlanta for more than 20 years. As products and processes evolved, Yaeger saw firsthand how her work supported small-business owners like her parents.
“It’s really cool to see our products out in the real world. Small-business owners don’t have a ton of time to devote to all the different platforms, so that is a direct benefit I saw not only in my personal life but also as we went out and talked to folks around the world,” Yaeger said. “It’s the difference our products make in the building of people’s businesses that was really wonderful to see.”
Yaeger continued to work on internal tools before stepping into a management role in 2021. Now, she supports the design tools, accessibility and internationalization teams. As a manager, Yaeger impact has expanded beyond a single app and has allowed her to make an impact across Meta’s entire ecosystem.
I think it really started at Mizzou in building those friendships and mentorships with my professors. I have really valued those who were invested in my career and helped me understand what I wanted to do.
Katie Yaeger
One of the most rewarding aspects of Yaeger’s role as manager is the opportunity to support others and contribute to their career growth, something she has always felt naturally drawn to.
“I think it really started at Mizzou in building those friendships and mentorships with my professors. I have really valued those who were invested in my career and helped me understand what I wanted to do,” Yaeger said. “I love being there for others to help them grow. I’ve had a lot of great managers throughout my time here, and I’m really interested in making that the focus of my role.”
Another aspect of Yaeger’s current role is refining and maintaining Meta’s terminology database. This was particularly relevant when Facebook rebranded to Meta.
Following the announcement, Yaeger and her team collaborated with brand and marketing to develop a process for updating product names to align with the change, such as renaming Oculus headsets to Meta Quest headsets.
“We had to update all the entries in our terminology database to reflect the new language. We had to update a lot of our content in our products. We had to update blogs, help center articles and longer form pieces to reflect this as well. This all had to get localized, so translated in a consistent way. My role was to help facilitate this process across the company,” Yaeger said.
Yaeger saw journalism as a vehicle for delivering the information people need to make better decisions. At Meta, she continues that mission by helping build tools that share information at scale, foster connections and empower decision-making.
“Be open to using your skills in a different way,” Yaeger advises, reflecting on her path from Mizzou to Meta. By following the guidance of mentors, and embracing opportunity, she has built a career that allows her to make an impact on a global scale.
Updated: January 16, 2025