At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead engineering teams to develop innovative research analytics solutions using AI and modern platforms.
- Company: Join Elsevier, a global leader in information and analytics for research and healthcare.
- Benefits: Enjoy flexible working hours, wellbeing initiatives, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Collaborative environment with a focus on work/life balance and career development.
- Why this job: Shape the future of research analytics and make a real impact on global challenges.
- Qualifications: Proven leadership in software engineering and experience with large-scale data-intensive products.
The predicted salary is between 99000 - 121000 £ per year.
Are you passionate about leading large-scale engineering organisations and shaping the future of research analytics through data, AI and modern platform engineering?
Do you enjoy developing engineering leaders, driving technical strategy, and delivering innovative solutions that help researchers make better decisions?
About our Team
Sci Val is Elsevier's research-analytics platform.
It helps universities, research institutions and funding organizations evaluate research performance, benchmark against peers, understand collaboration networks, identify emerging research areas, and support evidence-based strategic decisions.
Sci Val is built on trusted, connected research data, including Scopus.
Learn more about Sci Val .
About the Role
As an Engineering Director supporting Sci Val, you will lead multiple engineering teams responsible for delivering a scalable, secure, and data-intensive analytics platform.
You will partner closely with Product, Data, Architecture, Quality Engineering, Security, UX and commercial stakeholders to shape technical strategy, modernise platform capabilities, and enable AI-assisted and agent-ready experiences for customers.
You will play a key leadership role in driving engineering excellence, developing technical talent, and ensuring the successful delivery of technology roadmaps that support research analytics and discovery solutions.
Responsibilities
- Lead Sci Val's engineering strategy and technical direction in partnership with Product, Data and Architecture.
- Define and uphold architectural standards across search, data, analytics, APIs and platform integration, aligned with Elsevier governance.
- Balance engineering excellence, innovation, cost efficiency and pragmatic delivery across the platform.
- Lead distributed engineering teams across frontend, backend, data and quality engineering.
- Hire, coach and develop high-performing engineers, engineering managers and technical leaders.
- Own workforce planning, succession planning, performance management and resource allocation.
- Drive planning, prioritisation and execution across multiple engineering teams and programmes.
- Maintain strong engineering standards for code quality, testing, release management, observability, security and operational resilience.
- Establish clear operating models for technical debt, production incidents, operational risk and partner delivery.
- Lead platform modernisation, consolidation and adoption of shared technology foundations to improve scalability, reliability and cloud-cost efficiency.
- Partner with Product, UX, Data and customers to improve Research Analytics workflows and enable AI-assisted, agent-ready experiences.
- Communicate technical trade-offs, dependencies, risks and delivery progress clearly to senior stakeholders and roadmap forums.
Requirements
- Experience in software engineering, including significant experience leading engineering managers, engineering leads and distributed teams across multiple geographies and time zones.
- Proven experience delivering large-scale, data-intensive software products in production.
- Demonstrated success setting technical strategy and delivering technology roadmaps.
- Demonstrated experience introducing AI-assisted development practices across engineering teams.
- Excellent communication, planning, influencing and stakeholder-management skills.
- Experience with large-scale data ingestion, transformation, indexing and query optimisation.
- Understanding of search, discovery and graph-based data relationships, particularly within research and scholarly domains.
- Familiarity with analytics-driven systems, knowledge graphs or metadata-rich datasets.
- Experience delivering AI-enabled product capabilities such as summarization, guided workflows, intelligent search or decision support.
- Understanding of making data platforms accessible to AI agents through APIs, metadata, data contracts or MCP-compatible interfaces.
- Experience with AI adoption in SDLC streams.
- 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 Pattern
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.
About the Business
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 har
- #J-18808-Ljbffr
Director Software Engineering in London employer: RELX
RELX is an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work environment in the heart of London where innovation meets collaboration. With a strong focus on employee wellbeing, generous benefits, and opportunities for professional growth, you will be empowered to influence strategic decisions across multiple business segments while enjoying a healthy work/life balance. Join us to be part of a forward-thinking team that values your contributions and fosters a culture of shared success.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Director Software Engineering in London
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at RELX or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to RELX.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like RELX.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like RELX that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Director Software Engineering in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at RELX.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at RELX and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at RELX
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If RELX uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
