Software Engineering Manager, Research

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.

The Software Engineering Manager will manage 2 high performing teams of engineers that develop and maintain these tools, working to both continue their work and level them up in terms of skills and practices. Additionally this role will contribute to the technical leadership of NYPL Digital by helping set standards for best practices in development and other technical areas. It will be a key member of our engineering leadership and help ensure that our strategic priorities are well defined, deliverable and in line with the teams’ work. They will have the opportunity to partner with departments across NYPL to identify and deliver on shared priorities, helping continue NYPL’s position as a leader in library technology.

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, this person will:

• 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, this person will:

• 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, this person will:

• 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 practices

Required Education and Certifications 

• Bachelor’s Degree -OR-

Required Experience

• Equivalent 7 - 10 + years of hands-on development experience on relevant tech stack

• At least 3 - 5 + years experience managing one or more engineering teams

Required Skills 

• Strong leadership, mentoring, coaching and decision-making skills

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Demonstrated ability to level up individual engineers and engineering teams

• Hands-on familiarity with modern AI coding assistants and agentic development tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or comparable), and a point of view on where they help and where they don't

• Track record of leading major technical initiatives to solve complex technical problems

• Knowledge of non-technical strategies for solving team, culture and process problems

• Experience establishing documentation standards and practices

• Expertise in Python application development and system design, including production experience with Python web frameworks

• Expertise in data pipeline architecture, data stores, queue processing and other tools

• Strong understanding of system architecture and design patterns as well as cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, etc)

• Strong understanding of DevOps practices and their impacts on technical delivery

• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to navigate through ambiguity and drive results.

Managerial/Supervisory Responsibilities: 

• Support team of 6-8 engineers in their day-to-day work

• Coach team members on both hard and soft skills

• Provide feedback on team performance and motivate team to deliver on project goals

• Keep team accountable and ensure delivery

NYPL Core Values:  

All team members are expected and encouraged to embody the NYPL Core Values:

• Be Helpful to patrons and colleagues

• Be Resourceful in solving problems 

• Be Curious in all aspects of your work

• Be Welcoming and Inclusive

Work Environment

• Office Setting

• Hybrid Work Schedule; required three days per week in office in NYC

Physical Duties

• Limited physical effort is required

• May require travel within NYC

Schedule 

• Monday - Friday, 9am - 5pm

• Hybrid Work Schedule; required three days per week in office in NYC

This job description represents the types and levels of responsibilities that will be required of the position and shall not be construed as a declaration of all of the specific duties and responsibilities for the role. Job duties may change if Library priorities change. Employees may be directed to perform job-related tasks other than those specifically presented in this description as needed.

The New York Public Library Salary Statement

At the Library, we believe that pay transparency and pay equity are important to ensuring we source the best candidates and keep the best employees. When making a determination as to the appropriate salary for a candidate, we consider a variety of factors such, including, but not limited to, the position requirements, the skills, prior experience, and educational background required or preferred for the job, the scope and impact of the role within the organization, internal peer equity, and the candidate's specific training, experience, education level, and skills. No single factor is conclusive; the Library reserves the right to consider any and all relevant factors and make a decision consistent with its policies.

Union Salaries are determined by collective bargaining agreement(s).