Front-End Developer

Front-End Developer

We are seeking an experienced Front-End Developer to join the Literature Services team at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), based at the Wellcome Genome Campus near Cambridge, UK.

About the Team

The Literature Services team develops and operates Europe PMC, a major open research infrastructure providing access to biomedical and life sciences literature. Europe PMC contains over 47 million publications, including more than 12 million full-text articles, and connects the scientific literature with research data, grants, citations, persistent identifiers and text-mined biological information. The service supports millions of users and large-scale programmatic access to the scientific literature.

What you will do

You will have a key role in developing the user-facing Europe PMC service, creating fast, accessible and intuitive interfaces that enable researchers to search, navigate and understand a large and increasingly interconnected scientific literature corpus.

Working closely with UX and product colleagues, back-end developers, data scientists and other members of the Literature Services team, you will translate user needs and designs into robust, reusable and maintainable front-end applications and components.

You will contribute to the ongoing evolution of Europe PMC's web architecture, helping us improve performance, accessibility, maintainability.

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Designing, developing and maintaining responsive, accessible and high-quality web interfaces for Europe PMC.
• Building reusable front-end components and contribute to a consistent design system across the service.
• Translating UX designs, prototypes and user requirements into production-quality interfaces.
• Developing interfaces for complex, data-rich functionality including literature search, filtering, article pages and research workflows.
• Integrating front-end applications with APIs and other web services using structured data such as JSON.
• Optimising front-end performance, including page loading, rendering and efficient delivery of web assets.
• Developing automated tests and contributing to continuous integration and deployment practices.
• Ensuring interfaces meet appropriate accessibility, usability and web standards.
• Working collaboratively with software developers, UX/product specialists, data scientists and scientific colleagues as part of cross functional teams
• Participating in code review, technical design and architectural discussions.
• Contributing to Agile development processes and the continuous improvement of Europe PMC.

You will have:

• Strong knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript and modern web development standards.
• Experience developing responsive, cross-browser web applications using a modern front-end framework such as React, Vue or equivalent.
• Experience building reusable components and maintainable front-end architectures.
• Experience integrating web applications with REST APIs and working with structured data such as JSON.
• A good understanding of web performance and experience diagnosing and improving front-end performance.
• Experience with automated testing and modern front-end testing frameworks.
• Experience using source control, particularly Git, and collaborative software development practices.
• Good understanding of web accessibility, usability and responsive design.
• An understanding of interaction and visual design, with the ability to work effectively with UX specialists and translate designs into high-quality interfaces.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work effectively with complex requirements and large, data-driven applications.
• Fluency with AI-assisted coding and development tools as part of standard working practice
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills

It would be advantageous to have additional experience in:

• Developing high-traffic or large-scale public web services.
• Design systems and component libraries.
• Front-end performance monitoring and optimisation.
• Search and discovery interfaces or other complex data-intensive applications.
• Agile development methodologies such as Scrum or Kanban.
• Bioinformatics, scientific information services, scholarly publishing or open research infrastructure.

Working Pattern: This role offers a hybrid working arrangement, with 1-2 days per week on site, including one designated team day to support collaboration and connection.

Contract length: Grant-funded, 3-year fixed-term Staff Member contract.

Salary: Grade 5 - Monthly salary from £3,452.05 after tax, plus generous benefits and financial allowances based on individual circumstances. Excluding 12.99% personal pension and insurance contributions.

What else you need to know

• International applicants: We recruit internationally and successful candidates are offered visa exemptions. Please take a look at our International Applicants page for further information.
• EMBL is a signatory of DORA. Find out how we apply DORA principles to our recruitment and performance assessment processes here.
• Diversity and inclusion: At EMBL, we believe that diverse teams drive innovation and scientific excellence. We encourage applications from candidates of all genders, identities, nationalities and/or any other diverse backgrounds.