Role Overview
Join EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and lead the engineering team behind one of the world’s largest and most widely used biomedical literature resources. As a Software Development Project Lead you will provide technical leadership for Europe PMC, a globally recognised open science platform used by millions of researchers every year. You will lead a team of backend and database developers and collaborate closely with the product team, machine learning engineers and data scientists to shape the next generation of literature discovery and AI‑powered research services.
Responsibilities
- Lead the technical development and long‑term architecture of Europe PMC and associated services.
- Define technical roadmaps to ensure the platform continues to scale in response to rapid growth in data volumes, AI capabilities and user demand.
- Lead, mentor and develop a team of software engineers, supporting both delivery and career development.
- Work across product, software engineering and data science teams to deliver new features and AI‑enabled services.
- Prioritise development work using Agile methodologies, balancing new functionality, operational stability and technical debt.
- Oversee large‑scale data ingestion and processing pipelines from multiple international content providers.
- Ensure the reliability, performance and availability of Europe PMC’s production services.
- Contribute to software engineering best practice, architecture, resource planning and delivery processes.
- Collaborate with colleagues across EMBL-EBI and with international partners to deliver shared infrastructure and strategic initiatives.
Required Qualifications
- A degree in Computer Science or equivalent professional experience.
- Experience managing technical delivery in Agile environments, including Scrum and Kanban.
- Experience designing, building and operating large‑scale, high‑availability systems handling substantial data volumes and user traffic.
- Experience managing software engineering projects from planning through delivery.
- Experience recruiting, mentoring and supporting software engineers.
- Strong stakeholder management skills, working effectively with both technical and non‑technical collaborators.
- Excellent communication skills and a collaborative leadership style.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience working with scientific data resources, bioinformatics or biological databases.
- Experience in scientific publishing, scholarly communications or research information systems.
- Experience developing systems that process terabyte‑scale datasets.
- Experience with modern JavaScript frameworks such as Vue.js or React.
- Experience using high‑performance or distributed computing environments, including Slurm.
- Experience supporting machine learning workflows or production ML pipelines.
- An interest in open science, scholarly communication and developing services that accelerate scientific discovery.
Technical Expertise
- Java and Spring.
- SQL and NoSQL databases (including MongoDB).
- Apache Solr/Lucene and large‑scale search systems.
- RESTful and SOAP web services.
- Unix/Linux environments and shell scripting.
- Git/GitLab and modern software development workflows.
- JIRA or similar issue tracking systems.
- Application performance optimisation, debugging and production support.
- Software testing, deployment and engineering best practices.
- Significant experience leading software engineering teams and developing people.
Contract & Salary
Contract length: Initial 3‑year fixed‑term, Staff Member contract with the potential for extension based upon availability of continued grant‑funding. Salary: Grade 7 – Monthly salary starting at £4,395.66 per month after tax but excluding pension and insurance contributions. Plus, generous benefits.
Benefits
- Monthly family, child and non‑resident allowances, annual salary review, pension scheme, death benefit, long‑term care, accident‑at‑work and unemployment insurances.
- Flexible working arrangements – including hybrid working patterns.
- Private medical insurance for you and your immediate family (including all prescriptions and generous dental & optical cover).
- 30 days annual leave per year, in addition public holidays.
- Relocation package including installation grant (if required).
- Free shuttle bus to and from work, on‑site library, subsidised on‑site gym and cafeteria, casual dress code, extensive sports and social club activities (on campus and remotely).
- On‑site nursery, 10 days of child sick leave, generous parental leave, holiday clubs on campus and monthly family and child allowances.
- Visa exemption, education grant for private schooling, financial support to travel back to your home country every second year and a monthly non‑resident allowance.
Diversity and Inclusion
EMBL is a signatory of DORA. Find out how we apply DORA principles to our recruitment and performance assessment processes here. Diversity and inclusion: At EMBL, we believe that diverse teams drive innovation and scientific excellence. We encourage applications from candidates of all genders, identities, nationalities and any other diverse backgrounds.
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