Front-End Developer

European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI); Cambridge; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working arrangement

Job summary

Europe PMC's Literature Services team seeks a front-end developer to translate user needs and designs into robust, accessible web interfaces. You will build reusable components and contribute to a consistent design system across the service, across literature search, article pages and research workflows.

Working closely with UX, product colleagues and back-end developers, you will integrate front-end applications with REST APIs, optimise performance and ensure accessibility and usability.

Qualifications

• Must have strong knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript and modern web development standards.
• Experience with responsive, cross-browser front-end applications using a modern framework (React or Vue).
• Experience building reusable front-end components and maintaining front-end architectures.

Responsibilities

• Designing, developing and maintaining responsive, accessible web interfaces for Europe PMC.
• Building reusable front-end components and contributing to a consistent design system across the service.
• Translating UX designs and user requirements into production-quality interfaces.
• Developing interfaces for data-rich functionality (literature search, article pages, workflows).
• Integrating front-end apps with REST APIs and JSON data.
• Optimising front-end performance and asset delivery.
• Developing automated tests and contributing to CI/CD practices.
• Ensuring accessibility, usability and web standards.

Skills

HTML/CSS/JavaScript

Accessibility & Usability

Cross-functional collaboration

Front-end performance optimization

Web development best practices

Tools

React

Vue

Git

REST APIs

Job description

Working closely with UX and product colleagues, back-end developers, data scientists and other members of the Literature Services team, you will translate user needs and designs into robust, reusable and maintainable front-end applications and components. You will contribute to the ongoing evolution of Europe PMC's web architecture, helping us improve performance, accessibility, maintainability. Your key responsibilities will include:

• Designing, developing and maintaining responsive, accessible and high-quality web interfaces for Europe PMC.
• Building reusable front-end components and contribute to a consistent design system across the service.
• Translating UX designs, prototypes and user requirements into production-quality interfaces.
• Developing interfaces for complex, data-rich functionality including literature search, filtering, article pages and research workflows.
• Integrating front-end applications with APIs and other web services using structured data such as JSON.
• Optimising front-end performance, including page loading, rendering and efficient delivery of web assets.
• Developing automated tests and contributing to continuous integration and deployment practices.
• Ensuring interfaces meet appropriate accessibility, usability and web standards.
• Working collaboratively with software developers, UX/product specialists, data scientists and scientific colleagues as part of cross functional teams
• Participating in code review, technical design and architectural discussions.
• Contributing to Agile development processes and the continuous improvement of Europe PMC.
  Strong knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript and modern web development standards.
• Experience developing responsive, cross-browser web applications using a modern front-end framework such as React, Vue or equivalent.
• Experience building reusable components and maintainable front-end architectures.
• Experience integrating web applications with REST APIs and working with structured data such as JSON.
• A good understanding of web performance and experience diagnosing and improving front-end performance.
• Experience with automated testing and modern front-end testing frameworks.
• Experience using source control, particularly Git, and collaborative software development practices.
• Good understanding of web accessibility, usability and responsive design.
• An understanding of interaction and visual design, with the ability to work effectively with UX specialists and translate designs into high-quality interfaces.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work effectively with complex requirements and large, data-driven applications.
• Fluency with AI-assisted coding and development tools as part of standard working practice
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills

It would be advantageous to have additional experience in:

• Developing high-traffic or large-scale public web services.
• Design systems and component libraries.
• Front-end performance monitoring and optimisation.
• Search and discovery interfaces or other complex data-intensive applications.
• Agile development methodologies such as Scrum or Kanban.
• Bioinformatics, scientific information services, scholarly publishing or open research infrastructure.
  The Literature Services team develops and operates Europe PMC, a major open research infrastructure providing access to biomedical and life sciences literature. Europe PMC contains over 47 million publications, including more than 12 million full-text articles, and connects the scientific literature with research data, grants, citations, persistent identifiers and text-mined biological information. The service supports millions of users and large-scale programmatic access to the scientific literature., 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/or any other diverse backgrounds.
  Working Pattern: This role offers a hybrid working arrangement, with 1-2 days per week on site, including one designated team day to support collaboration and connection.

Contract length: Grant-funded, 3-year fixed-term Staff Member contract