TypeScript/ JavaScript Engineer

You’re TypeScript/JavaScript engineer with experience designing and building Single Page Applications (SPA) that communicate with web APIs.

You’ll be joining us, the Web Development team at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), in our mission to create web applications that are useful, usable, and empower our employees and scientists worldwide.

We’re a team of web developers, designers and User Experience specialists who work with many different teams on a wide variety of internal and external projects across the institute. We often act as an internal agency, delivering projects in collaboration with other teams

Some of our recent projects include:

- Developing a visualization for internal service roadmaps. A TypeScript React widget that uses the Google Sheets API to fetch data and display it graphically as an interactive timeline.
- Building a training competency mapper, a multi route React application that interacts via a HAL JSON API with a Drupal backend
- Building the new data submission system for EMBL-EBI scientific data resources. An Angular web application that interacts with a series of APIs to handle data uploads and user authentication
- Developing the EMBL-EBI tools workspace, a progressive web application written in Angular. The application features user authentication (JWT through a federated authentication and authorization infrastructure), user history, cloud storage for user data.

Historically we’ve used a lot of the Drupal Content Management System (CMS), but we’re increasingly using lighter CMS like WordPress, and frameworks React and Angular to build rich frontends using APIs from headless CMS instances and other services.

We’re agile practitioners, and bring this model of development and product ownership to teams that we work with. We work closely with our colleagues across the institute following and contributing to the EMBL wide Visual Framework design system.

As a team we take ownership of the products we create through their lifecycle. We build, deploy, run, monitor, fix, and iteratively improve them. We’re avid users of tools like GitLab for collaboration, continuous integration and deployment automation. We are starting to run our products on a Kubernetes based infrastructure.

Your role
Your core responsibilities will include:

- Developing JavaScript/TypeScript Single Page Applications
- Helping operate and iteratively improve the products we build
- Defining, with the team, the technical architecture for products
- Coaching/mentoring other team members, and participating in code reviews
- Working directly with stakeholders to better understand their needs and feedback and translate into product changes

Typically we work on projects within a structure of dedicated sprints, with time between projects to help us cover our operational and business as usual (BAU) activities. You’d be helping with both projects and our BAU activities.

You have

- Proficiency with the core skills of HTML/CSS/JavaScript development
- At least three years experience developing and architecting JavaScript SPAs, e.g using React, Angular, Vue or similar
- Experience working with APIs and common authentication models
- Experience being part of an agile development process, participating throughout the software delivery lifecycle.
- Detailed understanding of the tools and processes of the trade - git, continuous integration pipelines, CLIs, security, unit testing, user stories, etc.
- Experience communicating and collaborating directly with stakeholders and users to better understand their needs

You might also have

- Experience programming in TypeScript
- A basic knowledge of containers and container orchestration, e.g. Docker, Kubernetes
- Experience developing content based websites for non-technical stakeholders
- An interest in science, training, communication, or education

Why join us
At EMBL-EBI, we help scientists realise the potential of ‘big data’ in biology by enabling them to exploit complex information to make discoveries that benefit mankind.

Working for EMBL-EBI gives you an opportunity to apply your skills and energy for the greater good.

As part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), we are a non-profit, intergovernmental organisation funded by over 27 member states and two associate member states.

We are located on the Wellcome Genome Campus near Cambridge in the UK, and our 600 staff are engineers, technicians, scientists and other professionals from all over the world.

EMBL is an inclusive, equal opportunity employer offering attractive conditions and benefits appropriate to an international research organisation. The remuneration package comprises a competitive salary, a comprehensive pension scheme and health insurance, educational and other family related benefits where applicable, as well as financial support for relocation and installation. For more information about pay and benefits click here

We have an informal culture, international working environment and excellent professional development opportunities but one of the really amazing things about us is the concentration of technical and scientific expertise – something you probably won’t find anywhere else.

If you’ve ever visited the campus you’ll have experienced first-hand our friendly, collegial and supportive atmosphere, set in the beautiful Cambridgeshire countryside. Our staff also enjoy excellent sports facilities including a gym, a free shuttle bus, an on-site nursery, cafés and restaurant and a library.