Senior Software Engineer – AI Innovation & Prototyping

Senior Software Engineer – Ai Innovation & Prototyping

• Department: Technology
• Employment Type: Full Time
• Location: Germany (Home based)

Description

About us
We are Digital Science and we are advancing the research ecosystem. We are a pioneering technology company, and our vision is of a future where a trusted and collaborative research ecosystem drives progress for all.

We believe in better, open, collaborative and inclusive research. In creating the next generation of tools and working in partnership with the community we tackle some of the biggest challenges to research. In order to achieve our vision, we need innovative, inspiring and dynamic people to join our team.

Are you passionate about pushing the boundaries of software development with AI? We build fast to learn fast, directly from users. Nova turns bold ideas into working software, puts those prototypes in front of real users, and iterates quickly based on what we learn. 

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer – AI Innovation & Prototyping to join our team. 

This role is ideal for someone who thrives on rapid experimentation, embraces cutting-edge AI coding tools, and is eager to turn bold ideas into working prototypes that shape the future of our products. If you are curious, creative, and ready to innovate at speed, and want to collaborate in a team of highly experienced senior developers, we’d love to hear from you.

Your new role

• Relentlessly focus on user outcomes: discover real user pain points, test hypotheses with working software, and validate impact with user feedback and data.
• Accelerate with AI without compromising quality: use AI-assisted programming and emerging agentic patterns to move fast, while keeping humans-in-the-loop for correctness, maintainability, and security.
• Continuously push the frontier: explore new AI capabilities (agentic “software engineer” concepts, tool-use, planning) and bring pragmatic, production-minded approaches to the team.

What You’Ll Be Doing

• User-centered prototyping: work with PM and UX to frame user problems, define success metrics, and rapidly deliver prototypes and small bets that can be tested with real users.
• AI-assisted development: use tools like Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and OpenAI code models to speed up implementation, testing, and refactoring while upholding engineering standards.
• Agentic patterns & orchestration: prototype systems that plan, call tools/functions, and collaborate with other agents; evaluate observability, safety, and cost-of-ownership.
• Cloud-native delivery: build throwaway-to-keep prototypes on AWS (e.g., API Gateway/Lambda/DynamoDB/Fargate, SQS, EventBridge) with CI/CD for quick deploys, preview environments, and fast rollback.
• Solid engineering hygiene at speed: establish patterns for testing (including LLM evals), typed APIs, tracing/metrics, and prompt/version management so prototypes are easy to extend or hand over.
• Framework fluency: apply AI frameworks when useful: Agents SDK, AI SDK, pydanticAI, LangChain, LlamaIndex; and know when simple bespoke code is better.
• Collaboration & handover: partner with platform, data, and security teams; produce concise docs and runbooks so production teams can scale what works.
• Domain awareness: incorporate the realities of the academic/publishing ecosystem (workflows, metadata, IP/licensing) into solution design.
• Stay ahead of emerging technologies and methodologies, introducing new approaches that keep the team at the forefront of AI-augmented software engineering.

What You’Ll Bring To The Role

• Several years of professional software engineering experience, ideally including full-stack or end-to-end development.
• Proven track record in building prototypes, MVPs, or innovative software solutions under tight timelines.
• Real-world cloud experience (AWS preferred) and CI/CD for rapid, reliable deployments.
• Demonstrated expertise in using AI coding assistants (e.g., GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, or similar tools) as part of the development workflow.
• Solid experience with modern programming languages and frameworks (e.g., JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Rust, React, Node.js).
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and CI/CD pipelines to enable fast, reliable deployment.

Skills

• Advanced software development skills with the ability to balance speed and quality.
• Strong creative, curious, and experimental mindset. Comfortable exploring uncharted territory with new tools and approaches.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and critical-thinking skills.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills across technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Self-motivated and passionate about staying up-to-date with cutting-edge technologies, especially in the AI space.
• Fluent in spoken and written English.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with academic/publishing workflows and data models.
• Experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform/CDK), vector databases, feature flags/A-B testing, and LLM observability/guardrails.

Please note - due to business need, we can only accept applications from candidates who reside in the following locations where we have established legal entities (UK, Spain, Germany, Romania). If you apply from outside of these areas, your application will not be considered.
Don't worry if you don't meet every qualification—let us be the judge! Studies show that many qualified candidates from under-represented groups hesitate to apply unless they meet every single requirement. We are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive team and strongly encourage you to submit your application.

Living Our Values

We invest in, nurture and support innovative businesses and technologies that make all parts of the research process more open, efficient and effective. 
The talent we secure is fundamental to us achieving our vision and our growth plans. The values we live by are:
We are brave in the pursuit of better We are collaborative and inclusive We are always open-minded We are from and for the community

At Digital Science, our vision is to see research flow seamlessly – trusted, collaborative, and accessible – fueling breakthroughs that push humanity forward. This ambitious mission is one we achieve together, by enabling open, collaborative, inclusive research.
We firmly believe that to truly innovate and solve the complex challenges faced by our customers, from researchers and universities to funders and publishers, we need diverse perspectives, experiences, and ideas. A rich mix of voices drives quality insights, fosters enhanced collaboration, and ultimately pushes knowledge forward more effectively.
As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to building and nurturing a workplace where every individual feels valued and belongs. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status. Beyond recruitment, we strive to cultivate an environment where inclusivity is woven into the fabric of our culture, enabling everyone to be their best self and do their best work.