Technical Team Lead, Scholarly eBooks - Hybrid/Onsite

Job Description

Job DescriptionDescriptionNot a remote role; this role requires onsite work in NYC office three days a week

Overview
NYPL is hiring a Technical Team Lead to join our Scholarly eBooks team to help us develop a new, cutting edge access project for a wide swath of research materials.This pioneering project aims to integrate Generative AI and Large Language Model (LLM) technologies into the New York Public Library's existing infrastructure, which prioritizes privacy, accuracy and equitable access to knowledge. Our core objective is to develop and deploy these powerful tools in a responsible and ethical manner. The ultimate goal is to empower researchers, scholars, and the general public to unearth and engage with materials within NYPL's vast and diverse collections in novel and profoundly impactful ways, thereby significantly enriching their exploration and discovery processes.
This role will lead a small, dedicated team of engineers to build and maintain applications (including an API layer, data pipelines and others) that will provide access to our growing digital collections, making our immense collections more accessible for our patrons through the NYPL website.
You will also contribute to the technical leadership of the larger Research group by helping set standards for best practices in Python application development, database management and other technical areas.
We are looking for someone we can count on to:Own:

• Key APIs and ETL pipelines, including connections to other NYPL properties
• Implementation of Generative AI/LLM/ML technologies and their configuration
• Day-to-day management of the Scholarly eBooks team and its technical priorities, coordinating its work with the product and project management teams
• Partnerships with other tech leads and architects to set policies across Engineering
• Relationships with Product Management, Project Management and Design to deliver on overall project goals

Teach:

• Support and mentor other engineers, helping them develop new technical skills and their understanding of engineering best practices generally
• Present on their, and the team’s, work to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Build support for Scholarly eBooks’ work across NYPL
• Coach team members to self-solve appropriate technical and team issues
• Inspire direct reports to achieve their career goals

Learn:

• Gain an understanding of library science practices, especially around metadata standards and formats
• Collaborate with other Technical Team Leads to help improve Digital’s culture and implement best practices is software development
• Stay abreast of Gen AI/LLM developments and their implications for this project and NYPL as a whole
• Balance multiple simultaneous priorities and workloads

Improve:

• Grow as a team member, collaborating with other NYPL engineers to solve problems
• Seek to retire legacy applications and replace them with modern, streamlined solutions
• Strengthen the team's ability to identify and mitigate technical risks.
• Refine decision-making processes to increase efficiency and effectiveness.

Some expectations for this role are that within:1 month, this person will:

• Understand our infrastructure, environments and deployment practices
• Understand the team’s current goals and challenges, including key stakeholder needs
• Meet and begin collaborating with other team leaders
• Identify and investigate areas for improvement

3 months, this person will:

• Gain an understanding of the Scholarly eBooks codebases
• Lead development, or approve of, all key/core features for the project
• Regularly perform code review of other engineers’ work
• Actively participate in design and architecture discussions
• Participate in conversations about the team’s progress and help report on status to Digital leadership

6 months and beyond, this person will:

• Actively contribute to code bases and understand code bases around NYPL Digital
• Provide technical advice and weigh in on decisions that impact our research platforms and help realize implementation of new features and bugfixes
• Regularly influence design and architecture discussions
• Help with the adoption of Gen AI/LLM tools within Digital and its products
• Collaborate with other technical team leaders to deliver new features across NYPL
• Take responsibility for new development work, coordinating the work of other engineers
• Help lead development teams by taking accountability, 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:

• Understand NYPL technical needs to define system specifications
• Design and implement scalable, optimized, and maintainable applications
• Collaborate with multiple teams working on research platforms to build innovative and forward-looking applications for our patrons
• Build software following industry best practices and NYPL values (https://github.com/NYPL/engineering-general)
• Work with product/project managers on estimating the feasibility and complexity of new products/features
• Mentor and coach junior developers on best practices and career growth
• Communicate priorities and system requirements to software development teams
• Manage a team of 3-4 engineers
• Motivate staff and create spaces where they can ask questions and voice their concerns
• Be transparent with the team about challenges, failures, and successes
• Research and recommend solutions based on cost benefit analysis and embracing automation and efficiency.
• Ask questions to ascertain the feasibility of technical approaches and provide guidance when challenges are encountered

Required Education, Experience & SkillsRequired Education and Certifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field
• - OR - equivalent required experience below

Required Experience

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

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
• 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
• Production experience working with Generative AI/ML tools and products with RAG experience a plus
• Production experience working with data stores, including ElasticSearch and/or Solr, with vector databases/stores a plus
• Strong understanding of system architecture and design patterns as well as cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, etc)
• Strong understanding of DevOps practices and their impact on implementation approaches

Managerial/Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Support team of 3-4 engineers in their day-to-day work

More...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 environment
• Hybrid work environment; required to be in office in NYC three days a week

Physical Duties

• Some light lifting/moving may be required
• Some travel within NYC may be required

Pre-Placement Physical Required?

• No

Union/Non Union

• Non-Union

FLSA Status

• Exempt

Schedule

• Monday-Friday; 9-5
• Requires work in NYC three days a week

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 LibrarySalary 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).