Software Engineering Lead

Location: Greater London

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** Software Engineering Lead*
* ** About the team:
** The Search and AI Platform is Elsevier’s agentic data platform, which powers products such as Scopus, Science Direct, and our next-generation LLM-powered research systems.

The platform uses agentic services to interrogate our rich knowledge graphs, search and recommendation systems, and our unparalleled collection of research data to deliver insights to the scientific community so they can collaborate more effectively, work smarter, and deliver quality research more quickly.

We are looking for an innovative, enthusiastic lead to work as part of the team building and enhancing our platform to deliver intelligent, scalable solutions that create real value for our clients.
*
* About the role:

** The Graph Traversal Search Team is a core part of Elsevier’s Search and AI Platform, powering products such as Scopus, Science Direct, and our next-generation LLM-powered research systems.

This team builds graph-based search capabilities that interrogate our rich knowledge graphs, enabling advanced traversal, discovery, and recommendation systems. As Software Engineering Lead, you will provide technical leadership, architectural direction, and mentoring, ensuring the team delivers scalable, dependable, and innovative solutions that accelerate scientific discovery..
*
* Key responsibilities:

*** Leading the Graph Traversal Search Team, guiding architecture, design, and implementation of graph-based search services.
* Driving the development of applications using Java, Spring Boot, Spring Graph

QL, and Apollo Federated Gateway.
* Architect and optimise Graph

QL APIs and federated services for unified data access.
* Overseeing deployment and scaling strategies on Kubernetes (EKS), ensuring resilience, observability, and high availability.
* Integrating with AWS services (S3, Parameter Store, SQS, SNS, Kinesis) to support ingestion, storage, and messaging pipelines.
* Championing clean code, SOLID principles, and engineering best practices, setting standards and mentoring engineers.
* Collaborating with product managers, data scientists, and other engineering teams to deliver advanced search and recommendation features.
* Ensuring robust monitoring and logging with New Relic and ELK, driving reliability and performance.
** Requirements:
*** Proven experience as a Software Engineering Lead / Tech Lead / Principal in distributed systems or search platforms.
* Strong expertise in Java and the Spring Boot ecosystem.
* Hands-on experience with Graph

QL APIs and federated API design.
* An advocate of best practices for rapid development of quality software, including clean code, architectural design patterns, CI/CD
* Solid background in cloud-native architectures with AWS and Kubernetes (EKS).
* Comfortable learning new technologies, languages, and tools on the job, to ensure that the product is not left behind in a rapidly evolving ecosystem.
* Excellent communication and leadership skills, with a track record of mentoring and guiding teams.
* An inclusive, positive, collaborative mindset and a desire to deliver real business value to our customers.
** Nice to have:
*** Experience with
** Apollo Router
** or advanced Graph

QL federation strategies.
* Background in
** data modelling for graph-based systems**.
* Familiarity with search platforms or AI-driven discovery systems.

Join our team and contribute to a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence. If you are ready to advance your career and make a significant impact, we encourage you to apply.
** 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 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.
** Working for you
** We know that your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. These are some of the benefits we are delighted to offer:
*…