She began her career at the
New York Times as a summer intern while in graduate school. Cox worked at the Federal Reserve Board from 2001 to 2003. Cox was hired in 2005 as a graphics editor at
The New York Times. In her years at the Times, Cox has worked on many stories using statistics and data visualization, making the Times one of the new graphic leaders according to the
Harvard Business Review. On April 22, 2014, the
New York Times website launched its data journalism section,
The Upshot, with Amanda Cox a graphics editor. Cox was named editor of
The Upshot in early 2016, called "a rare intellect" and "a crucial part of the future leadership of The Times". Her desk created the election monitoring needle for the
2016 US Presidential Election. In late 2017 Cox implemented a "live polling" feature at the Times, partnering with
Siena College, allowing for election results in real-time. Cox is considered one of the Times' "resident experts on polling." Cox is a leader in the field of
data visualization, called "the Michael Phelps of infographics." Her conference talks have included
Shaping Data for News at the
Eyeo festival and keynoting at
OpenVis Conf in 2013 and 2017. In her opening keynote in 2013, Cox said the design "wasn't ultimately about typography and whitespace, but about empathy—about creating visualizations that readers can both understand and engage with emotionally." She has also served as the judge for data visualization competitions, and several of her data visualizations were selected for
The Best American Infographics 2014 and
The Best American Infographics 2016. In January 2022, after 16 years at the
Times, Cox joined USAFacts, a non-profit centered in providing a single, unified resource for public data. In July 2023, Cox joined Bloomberg News as executive editor of data journalism. == Notable works ==