Software Engineering Manager, Research

nypl; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Retirement plan

Professional development

Job summary

NYPL is seeking a Software Engineering Manager to oversee Research teams' work in developing tools for user discovery and access to over 20 million volumes. This hybrid role requires three days a week in-office collaboration in New York City. The successful candidate will manage daily operations, define strategic priorities, and mentor engineering talent to foster growth and innovation.

The position emphasizes technology management, stakeholder communication, and application optimization, integrating modern software development practices.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in managing software development projects and teams.
• In-depth knowledge of software engineering principles and practices.
• Strong communication skills for collaborating with diverse stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead daily development work and priorities for Research engineering teams.
• Manage the work of 6-8 engineers, ensuring clear communication of priorities.
• Collaborate to build innovative applications for patrons and staff.

Skills

Team management

Software development

Mentoring

Collaboration

Technical problem-solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Version control (Git)

Agile methodologies

Job description

This is not a remote role; this role is hybrid and requires three days a week in the office in NYC

Job Summary

NYPL is hiring a Software Engineering Manager to help lead our research teams in developing our suite of discovery and access tools. These include the Research Catalog, which provides access to over 20 million volumes and Digital Collections, which provides access to over a million digitized assets, as well as other tools that provide access to NYPL’s extensive archives and special collections. These patron-facing applications are backed by a set of data pipelines and APIs that support discovery and ensure that patrons can request materials, make research appointments and order high-resolution scans, among other options. This role will ensure that these systems are maintained while helping lead strategic work that will help NYPL build a unified experience for our research patrons, ensuring that they have easy access to the incredible wealth of NYPL’s collections.

We are looking for someone we can count on to:

Own

• The day-to-day development work and priorities for the Research engineering teams
• Strategic priorities and projects for the Research teams, including new feature development and the shipping of new products
• Overall development roadmaps for the Research teams, ensuring capacity to tackle product work as well as routine maintenance and technical debt
• A broad base of technical knowledge to be able to identify solutions for difficult problems in our Research products
• Relationships between the Research engineering teams and both our internal Product/Project teams as well as stakeholders across NYPL

Teach

• Support and mentor Research engineers, helping them deliver results on time and in accordance with department standards
• Present on their and the team’s work to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Build support for Research’s work among interested parties across NYPL
• Align approaches to development between engineering teams, sharing best practices

Learn

• Gain an understanding of library science practices, especially around the metadata standards and practices used in NYPL’s Research systems
• Investigate the connections between NYPL’s different research tools to learn how records and metadata can be shared and connected between them
• Collaborate with Engineering leadership to help improve NYPL Digital’s culture and implement best practices is software development

Improve

• Grow as a team member, collaborating with other NYPL engineers to solve problems
• Retire legacy applications and replace them with modern, streamlined solutions
• Identify hidden connections between our collections and design ways to surface them

Some expectations for this role are that within:

1 month

• Build an understanding of NYPL’s Research products and architecture
• Meet with engineering team members as well as key stakeholders to understand the team’s current workstreams and strategic priorities
• Review and understand their teams’ current development practices and workflows
• Collaborate with other engineering leaders to understand the current state of the engineering organization and its priorities

3 months

• Understand the Research teams’ codebases, their status and development needs
• Build a picture of the status of engineering team members with regards to the status of their work and their annual goals
• Participate in design and priority discussions with product and project management
• Lead conversations about the Research teams’ development progress and help report on status to Digital leadership

6 months and beyond

• Provide mentorship to engineering team members on both project based work and longer term career goals
• Regularly influence design and architecture discussions for Research products
• Collaborate with engineering leadership to deliver new features across NYPL and facilitate the adoption of best practices based development in the department
• Take overall responsibility for new engineering projects, coordinating engineers on the Research teams
• Help lead product development by taking accountability for delivery, mentoring developers, fostering collaboration and generally aiding the adoption of best practices
• Influence and empower the team to build useful, accessible applications in a sustainable and maintainable way

Responsibilities

• Manage the work and output of 6-8 engineers across NYPL’s Research teams communicating priorities and system requirements clearly
• Collaborate with the Research teams to build innovative and forward-looking applications for our patrons and staff
  • Work with product and project leadership to estimate the feasibility and complexity of new products and features
  • Hire, mentor and coach engineers on best practices and career growth
  • Foster a psychologically safe team environment — be transparent about challenges, failures, and successes, and encourage staff to ask questions, voice concerns, and engage critically with the work.
  • Research and recommend solutions driven by data and cost-benefit analysis, with an emphasis on automation and efficiency.
  • Encourage and enable engineers to adopt AI coding tools and agentic workflows where they improve quality, velocity, or developer experience, while maintaining strong code review, testing, and security practice.