Director Software Engineering

RX Brasil; City Of London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Elsevier is seeking an Engineering Director to lead SciVal’s engineering teams, shaping strategy and delivering a scalable, data-intensive analytics platform. You will partner with Product, Data, Architecture, Security and UX to drive technical roadmaps and AI-enabled experiences for customers.

You will hire, coach and develop leaders across frontend, backend, data and QA, aligning governance and cost efficiency with ambitious growth plans.

Qualifications

• Experience leading engineering managers and distributed teams across geographies.
• Track record delivering large-scale data-intensive software products.
• Ability to set technical strategy and roadmaps for complex platforms.
• Experience introducing AI-enabled practices across SDLC.

Responsibilities

• Lead SciVal’s engineering strategy and technical direction with cross-functional partners.
• Define architectural standards across search, data, analytics, APIs and platform integration.
• Lead distributed engineering teams across frontend, backend, data and QA.
• Hire, coach and develop engineers and technical leaders; manage workforce planning.
• Drive platform modernization, cost efficiency and reliability improvements.

Skills

Leadership

People management

Strategic planning

Communication

AI integration

Data-intensive systems

APIs

Cloud architecture

Job description

About our Team

SciVal is Elsevier’s research-analytics platform. It helps universities, research institutions and funding organizations evaluate research performance, benchmark against peers, understand collaboration networks, identify emerging research areas, and support evidence-based strategic decisions. SciVal is built on trusted, connected research data, including Scopus. Learn more about SciVal.

About the Role

As an Engineering Director supporting SciVal, you will lead multiple engineering teams responsible for delivering a scalable, secure, and data-intensive analytics platform. You will partner closely with Product, Data, Architecture, Quality Engineering, Security, UX and commercial stakeholders to shape technical strategy, modernise platform capabilities, and enable AI-assisted and agent-ready experiences for customers. You will play a key leadership role in driving engineering excellence, developing technical talent, and ensuring the successful delivery of technology roadmaps that support research analytics and discovery solutions.

Responsibilities

• Lead SciVal’s engineering strategy and technical direction in partnership with Product, Data and Architecture.
• Define and uphold architectural standards across search, data, analytics, APIs and platform integration, aligned with Elsevier governance.
• Balance engineering excellence, innovation, cost efficiency and pragmatic delivery across the platform.
• Lead distributed engineering teams across frontend, backend, data and quality engineering.
• Hire, coach and develop high-performing engineers, engineering managers and technical leaders.
• Own workforce planning, succession planning, performance management and resource allocation.
• Drive planning, prioritisation and execution across multiple engineering teams and programmes.
• Maintain strong engineering standards for code quality, testing, release management, observability, security and operational resilience.
• Establish clear operating models for technical debt, production incidents, operational risk and partner delivery.
• Lead platform modernisation, consolidation and adoption of shared technology foundations to improve scalability, reliability and cloud-cost efficiency.
• Partner with Product, UX, Data and customers to improve Research Analytics workflows and enable AI-assisted, agent-ready experiences.
• Communicate technical trade-offs, dependencies, risks and delivery progress clearly to senior stakeholders and roadmap forums.

Requirements

• Experience in software engineering, including significant experience leading engineering managers, engineering leads and distributed teams across multiple geographies and time zones.
• Proven experience delivering large-scale, data-intensive software products in production.
• Demonstrated success setting technical strategy and delivering technology roadmaps.
• Demonstrated experience introducing AI-assisted development practices across engineering teams.
• Excellent communication, planning, influencing and stakeholder-management skills.
• Experience with large-scale data ingestion, transformation, indexing and query optimisation.
• Understanding of search, discovery and graph-based data relationships, particularly within research and scholarly domains.
• Familiarity with analytics-driven systems, knowledge graphs or metadata-rich datasets.
• Experience delivering AI-enabled product capabilities such as summarization, guided workflows, intelligent search or decision support.
• Understanding of making data platforms accessible to AI agents through APIs, metadata, data contracts or MCP-compatible interfaces.
• Experience with AI adoption in SDLC streams.

Work in a Way That Works for You

We promote a healthy work/life balance across the organisation. We offer an appealing working prospect for our people. With numerous wellbeing initiatives, shared parental leave, study assistance, and sabbaticals, we will help you meet your immediate responsibilities and your long-term goals.

Working Pattern

Working flexible hours - flexing the times when you work in the day to help you fit everything in and work when you are the most productive.

About the Business

A global leader in information and analytics, we help researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. Building on our publishing heritage, we combine quality information and vast data sets with analytics to support visionary science and research, health education and interactive learning, as well as exceptional healthcare and clinical practice. At Elsevier, your work contributes to the world's grand challenges and a more sustainable future. We harness innovative technologies to support science and healthcare to partner for a better world. If performed in NLD Amsterdam (Radarweg), the base pay range is €110,500 - €184,000. We know your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. We are delighted to offer country specific benefits. Click here to access benefits specific to your location. We support continuous discovery and uphold the highest standards of content integrity, reliability, and reproducibility so the communities we serve can advance their field of science, healthcare or innovation with confidence. By combining high-quality content with powerful analytics, we transform complexity into clarity and deliver mission-critical insights that help professionals make better decisions when it matters most. We deliver insights that help research institutions, governments, and funders achieve their goals. We help researchers discover and share knowledge, collaborate, and accelerate innovation. We help librarians provide verified, quality information to universities. We help innovators turn knowledge into new products. We help health professionals improve patient care and educators train the next generation of doctors and nurses. Connecting quality content and innovative technologies, we make progress go further and happen faster. And by championing inclusion and sustainability, we ensure progress benefits all. With 9,500 employees, over 2,300 technologists in 5 major tech hubs, and more than 60 locations across the globe, we are committed to supporting the scientific and healthcare communities around the world. We offer a diverse range of opportunities across technology, commercial, business, and early career jobs. If you are looking for a career that inspires progress in science, innovation and health, and allows you to grow every day, find your team at Elsevier.

We are an equal opportunity employer: qualified applicants are considered for and treated during employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship status, disability status, protected veteran status, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. USA Job Seekers: EEO Know Your Rights. Elsevier is a global leader in advanced information and decision support for science and healthcare.

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