Quality Assurance Lead (Lex Academic)

Lex Academic purveys white-glove editing, indexing, and translation services to academics, doctoral candidates, and university presses worldwide, with particular strength in philosophy, classics, and history. Lex Academic seek to appoint a full-time Quality Assurance Lead to take responsibility for the standard of every edited manuscript that leaves the company.

This role reports directly to the Editorial Project Manager and CEO. The role is fully remote.

About the role

This is a full-time remote role for a Quality Assurance Lead. Lex Academic’s editing is carried out by PhD-educated freelance editors working remotely, and no manuscript is returned to a client until it has passed a second, independent check. The Quality Assurance Lead performs that check: a secondary copy-edit of each manuscript (articles, theses, and monographs, predominantly in the humanities and social sciences) once the freelancer has returned it. This involves correcting residual errors of grammar, syntax, punctuation, and spelling; ensuring consistency of style and formatting; verifying that citations and references conform to the required style; and making sure that the editor’s comments and queries to the author are clear, correct, and appropriately phrased. Where a freelancer’s work has fallen short, the Quality Assurance Lead corrects the work (e.g., correctly applying the style guide; improving the mark-up on the text, etc.) and itemizes the shortfalls so that the freelancer can learn and improve.

Each week, the Editorial Project Manager will provide the list of jobs to be quality-controlled. The Quality Assurance Lead works through that list, quality-controlling each project, and reporting back on each manuscript.

Lex Academic are a boutique editorial outfit, so the focus is not on high volumes of work, but exceptionally high quality across around 50 projects per month. The work is deadline-led and spans many citation styles and publishers’ house styles; the Quality Assurance Lead must therefore be able to move between conventions without loss of accuracy and to work to fixed delivery dates. All editorial work is carried out by human experts, without recourse to AI.

Skills and qualities required

• Right to work in the UK (UK passport required)
• At least ten years’ professional experience in proofreading and copy-editing, ideally of academic work (required for shortlisting)
• Native-level command of written English: work arrives in English and demands the highest proficiency in the language
• Proficiency in all major citation styles, including Chicago (notes–bibliography and author–date), MHRA, MLA, APA, Harvard, and OSCOLA
• Outstanding attention to detail, together with the judgement to distinguish an error from an authorial choice
• The ability to assess another editor’s work rigorously and fairly, and to correct its shortcomings precisely
• Impeccable time management and the ability to work to fixed delivery dates across several manuscripts at once
• High degree of competence in Microsoft Word (Track Changes and comments) and Office 365
• A PhD, preferably in the humanities or social sciences (anthropology, philosophy, classics, and history are Lex Academic’s core fields), is strongly preferred
• One or more foreign languages are preferred (most desirable: French, German, Italian, Arabic)
• Proficiency in Adobe Acrobat (for PDF proofreading) and InDesign (for typeset proofs) is very desirable
• When quality‑assurance tasks are lighter, you will be required to perform copy‑editing tasks, proofreading, and other tasks that fit your experience

Applicants should have at least a very good first degree in the humanities or social sciences, an impeccable command of the English language, and the temperament to check the work of other experts with rigour and tact. Ten years’ professional experience in proofreading and editing will be required for shortlisting. Their preference is for an applicant with higher research degrees and considerable in‑house or freelance copy‑editing experience. Proficiency in foreign languages is highly desirable. Career development would involve learning how to procure image and textual permissions for monograph publications.

This fully remote role requires exceptional concentration, exactness, and a commitment to delivering editorial work of the highest quality. Lex Academic’s motto is that they never let an academic client down.

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