AI Platform Lead: RAG Systems & API Strategy

RELX; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 115,400 - 192,300; Full time

Job summary

Elsevier is seeking a Software Engineering Lead to guide a six-member team within the CK AI Service, shaping technical strategy and delivering scalable RAG workflows and API expansion. You will mentor engineers, remove bottlenecks, and ensure delivery excellence while setting up the team for growth.

The role requires hands-on coding on complex systems, plus leadership of cross-functional initiatives and collaboration with Data Science to drive the product roadmap.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to lead, mentor, and grow engineering teams.
• Track record of reducing knowledge silos and improving team health.
• Experience removing blockers and increasing delivery velocity.
• Experience designing distributed systems and APIs at scale.
• Hands-on with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows and AI-powered APIs.
• Understanding of LLMs, embeddings, and vector search.

Responsibilities

• Managing and mentoring of six direct reports.
• Drive and own the technical strategy for the CK AI Service, including the design and governance of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows and API expansion.
• Improving the delivery velocity, reducing bottlenecks and single points of failure, driving standardization, mentoring, and cross-functional alignment as the platform matures
• Establishing a sustainable leadership model to support the planned division and growth of the team.
• Collaborating with our Data Science team to help drive product road map and feature design forward.

Skills

Leadership & mentoring

Distributed systems

API design

RAG workflows

LLM integration

Embeddings & vector search

Microservices

Technical strategy

Performance optimization

Job description

Elsevier is seeking a Software Engineering Lead to guide a six-member team within the CK AI Service, shaping technical strategy and delivering scalable RAG workflows and API expansion. You will mentor engineers, remove bottlenecks, and ensure delivery excellence while setting up the team for growth.

The role requires hands-on coding on complex systems, plus leadership of cross-functional initiatives and collaboration with Data Science to drive the product roadmap.