About Careertakes

👉 Important disclosure: Careertakes is a third-party recruiting platform supporting this hiring process. If selected, you will be employed directly by our client, Libraries.

Applicants for this role may also receive access to additional matched opportunities through the Careertakes platform.

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What You’ll Do

As a Software Engineer III on the Digital Asset Preservation and Access (DAPA) team for our Confidential Client, you will help modernize and scale the systems that make library collections discoverable and accessible. You will work across teams to design, implement, test, and maintain backend services, data pipelines, and delivery systems for digital assets.

• Contribute to modernization of the Digital Asset Management (DAM) ecosystem and related discovery platforms.
• Design and build robust OCR pipelines and processes to improve search and discoverability.
• Improve stability, observability, and scalability of data pipelines that move assets and metadata.
• Implement efficient delivery methods for high-resolution images and media to patrons.
• Write, maintain, and expand unit, integration, and load tests.
• Review code, give constructive feedback, and follow industry best practices for maintainable, testable code.
• Create and maintain technical documentation and deployment/runbooks.
• Identify and remediate technical debt; propose and implement improvements.
• Collaborate with product partners, senior engineers, and stakeholders to own technical decisions for your projects.
• Mentor and guide junior engineers on best practices and code ownership.

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30 / 90 / 180 / 12‑Month Expectations

• 1 month

  • Complete development tasks using team workflows and begin participating in code reviews.
  • Begin learning the DAM product requirements and how they tie to broader objectives.
  • Start writing unit tests for owned code.

• 3 months

  • Understand the DAM infrastructure and common system challenges.
  • Contribute to new projects and drive maintainable, observable implementations.
  • Own technical decisions for assigned projects.

• 6 months

  • Consistently contribute across relevant codebases and participate in architecture discussions.
  • Automate testing processes and help improve CI/CD workflows.

• 12 months and beyond

  • Own significant components within the DAM ecosystem (design, implementation, maintenance).
  • Lead adoption of engineering improvements, testing frameworks, and best practices.
  • Provide technical leadership and collaborate with engineering leadership on roadmap direction.

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Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of hands-on software development experience (or a Bachelor’s degree plus relevant experience).
• 3–5 years of backend development experience building production services.
• Proven ability to deliver production-quality backend systems and automate testing/deployment.

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Required Skills

• 3+ years building backend applications in Python or Ruby.
• Proficiency with at least one Python web framework (Flask, Django, etc.).
• Strong SQL skills and experience with relational databases (Postgres, MySQL).
• Proficiency with git and modern version control workflows.
• Experience with CI/CD tooling, especially GitHub Actions.
• Familiarity with agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban).
• Experience with a major cloud platform (AWS preferred).
• Working knowledge of other server-side languages (PHP or Java is a plus).

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Preferred Skills

• Experience with discovery/search layers (Elasticsearch, Solr).
• Experience implementing solutions that use ML/AI for search or processing.
• Experience building full-text search solutions and index pipelines.
• Experience containerizing applications and working with ECS/EKS or similar.
• Familiarity with RESTful, stateless service design.
• Experience writing integration and load/performance tests.
• Understanding of deployment infrastructure for machine images or containerized services.
• Familiarity with library metadata standards and metadata workflows.

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Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree OR 4+ years of experience developing software applications at scale.
• At least 4 years of hands-on development on relevant tech stacks; 3+ years focused on backend services.

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Work Environment & Schedule

• Office setting based in New York, NY (may require travel within the city).
• Typical schedule: Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
• Limited physical duties; standard office ergonomics apply.

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Compensation & Benefits

• Salary range: $110,000–$115,000 per year.
• Certain roles may be union-represented; union salaries are determined by collective bargaining agreements where applicable.
• Competitive benefits (health, retirement, paid time off) — specific package details provided by Confidential Client during hiring.

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Why This Role?

This is an opportunity to have a measurable impact on how thousands of patrons discover and access digital collections. You’ll work on strategic engineering priorities, help raise the bar for engineering practices, and influence systems used across the organization.

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Equal Opportunity & Hiring Transparency

Careertakes and our client are Equal Opportunity Employers committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. We prohibit discrimination or harassment of any kind. To support a fair and efficient hiring process, AI tools may be used to assist with application review or resume screening. These tools do not replace human decision-making. Final hiring decisions are made by people.

If you have questions about how your data is used, please contact us directly.