Software Engineering Manager

Frontiers is a leading Open Access publisher with the mission to make science open and accessible to all. By breaking down barriers to research dissemination, Frontiers provides authors, institutions, and the broader scientific community with the tools and platforms to publish, share, and evaluate science in an open and transparent way.

As part of this mission, Frontiers maintains a growing set of Institutional Partnership Agreements with universities, consortia, and research organisations worldwide. These agreements allow institutions to directly support their researchers by funding Article Processing Charges (APCs) and by facilitating transparency on research output, costs, and impact.

Within this context, Team Nexus plays a pivotal role in developing and maintaining the software systems that underpin a critical business domain: Institutional Partnerships (IP). The team manages a portfolio of applications, data pipelines, and integrations that serve both external partners (institutions, researchers, and payment providers) and internal stakeholders (finance, sales, and editorial teams).

The Institutional Partnerships Dashboard (IP Dashboard) is a core platform that supports Frontiers’ active agreements with institutions. Each partner organization receives access to a portal where they can view all articles matched to their agreement and decide whether or not to fund them. The dashboard is highly transactional, tightly integrated with submission and review systems, and ensures that institutions can transparently track their researchers’ publishing activity.

Building on this, the Insights Platform (IP Portal) was created as a strategic extension to support prospective partners and Frontiers’ sales pipeline. Unlike the transactional dashboard, this platform focuses on analytics: it aggregates historical data on articles authored by an institution’s researchers and presents metrics on output, APC spending, views, downloads, citations, and editorial involvement. Institutions gain a clear overview of their research engagement with Frontiers, while the sales team uses the platform to segment and prioritize prospects. This dual purpose makes the Insights Platform both a customer-facing product and an internal sales tool.

From a technical perspective, the platform is built with a Vue.js frontend and .NET backend, supported by SQL Server databases. It relys heavily on ETL pipelines for data integration.

We are looking for a Software Engineering Manager to join our technical team at Frontiers. The Software Engineering Manager oversees a team of engineers, driving the delivery of key software initiatives while fostering team growth and excellence. This role balances people management and technical leadership, ensures effective collaboration across teams, and ensures productivity, quality, and professional development within the software teams.

Key responsibilities:

• Exercises considerable autonomy in decision-making, effectively overseeing team tasks and applying judgment to resolve issues.
• Manages a team of 5-8 employees, extending influence beyond immediate team through cross-functional collaboration.
• Translates objectives into actionable plans and drives task execution within the team.
• Ensures alignment with both team and portfolio goals while managing risks for successful outcomes.
• Communicates effectively within the team and with cross-functional teams, fostering collaboration.
• Facilitates open discussions to ensure team cohesion and goal alignment.
• Identifies process improvement opportunities for the team and broader portfolio.
• Provides guidance and support for team development and growth.
• Manages day-to-day operations including resource allocation and task assignment.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 7+ years working in software engineering teams, with at least 3 years in a leadership role.
• Deep understanding of software development practices, system architecture, and cloud computing.
• Proficiency in multiple programming languages and development tools.
• Strong leadership and team management skills followed by proven experience in leading software engineering teams.
• Proven experience in project management
• Strategic vision to foresee industry trends and technological advances
• Capacity to inspire and keep the motivation of teams, fostering a collaborative and high-performing environment
• Ability to drive a culture of innovation and excellence

Benefits

• We prioritise office presence and emphasise in-person collaboration, but also offer appropriate adjustments where needed, in line with company policy

• Extra wellbeing days on top of your annual leave allowance

• Up to 3 paid volunteering days each year

• 24/7 confidential Employee Assistance Programme (wellbeing, mental health, legal & financial support)

• Learning & development support via the Frontiers Learning Hub

Equal opportunity statement

Frontiers actively embraces diversity and is a safe and welcoming workplace. Recruitment is free from discrimination - including based on race, national or ethnic origin, age, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation. With employees from more than 50 different nations, our diversity creates vibrant teams and constantly challenges us to appreciate multiple perspectives.