Data Science Team Lead, Search & Evaluation in London

Elsevier’s mission is to help researchers, clinicians, and life sciences professionals advance discovery and improve health outcomes through trusted content, data, and analytics. As the landscape of science and healthcare evolves, we are pioneering intelligent discovery experiences — from Scopus AI and LeapSpace to ClinicalKey AI, PharmaPendium, and next-generation life sciences platforms. These products leverage retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), semantic search, and generative AI to make knowledge more discoverable, connected, and actionable across disciplines.

About the role: We are seeking a Search and Evaluation Data Science Team Lead to join Elsevier’s Platform Data Science organisation — the team driving enterprise-scale AI, retrieval, and evaluation innovation across Elsevier’s global platforms. This role will lead a group of applied scientists advancing lexical, vector, and hybrid retrieval systems; designing robust evaluation frameworks; and shaping the foundation of Elsevier’s next-generation search and AI ecosystem.

Key responsibilities:

• Collaborate on core platform services powering knowledge graphs, semantic enrichment, and generative interfaces that underpin Elsevier’s AI products in science, health, and life sciences.

Data Science & Evaluation

• Advance Elsevier’s knowledge graph and metadata integration strategy, linking research and health data for more context-aware retrieval.

Requirements:

• 6+ years of experience building and evaluating search, ranking, or retrieval systems, including 2+ years in a leadership or senior technical role.
• Strong programming proficiency in Python, with hands-on experience in PyTorch, Hugging Face, LangGraph or Haystack.
• Experience deploying retrieval-enhanced LLMs and hybrid retrieval pipelines in production environments.
• Familiarity with scientific ontologies and metadata standards (e.g., MeSH, UMLS, ORCID, CrossRef).
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to bridge data science, engineering, and product domains.
• Prior experience in academic publishing, research intelligence, or enterprise-scale AI systems.

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. 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: As 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. Elsevier is a global leader in advanced information and decision support for science and healthcare. We believe that by working together with the communities we serve, we can shape human progress to go further, happen faster, and benefit all.

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.

Elsevier is part of RELX Group. Let’s shape progress together. Join us.