Software Engineer

About us

Overleaf is a scaleup and social enterprise that builds modern collaborative authoring tools for scientists — like Google Docs for Science. We build an online, real-time collaborative editor for papers, theses and other documents written in the LaTeX markup language. We have over 22 million registered users from around the world, over 700,000 people use our platform each day, and we host over 100 million user-created projects.

Overleaf is part of Digital Science. Digital Science is 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. Want to join us?

Your new role

Our backend stack is mainly , Express, MongoDB and Redis. We are hosted on Google Cloud Platform, mainly in Google Kubernetes Engine. Our frontend stack is React with TypeScript. And we're in large part open source ). We deploy 2–6 times daily, supported by a modern cloud stack, continuous integration and a lot of automation.

Please be aware that we may close this position early if we receive a high volume of applications, so we encourage you to apply promptly.

Please also note that due to business need, we can only accept applications from candidates who live in the following locations:

• UK
• Spain
• Germany
  Romania

If you apply from outside of these areas, unfortunately your application will not be considered.

Your main activities will be:

• Work with product managers and UX researchers to provide technical input on new development. Our engineering and product teams work together closely to make sure we are building the right thing and building it right.
• Write high-quality frontend and backend code, mainly in JavaScript and TypeScript. Write automated tests. We rely heavily on automated testing to catch regressions.
• Take your code through to production. We practice DevOps, with the support of our Infrastructure Operations team, and expect engineers to take responsibility for getting their code out to production and making sure it is working properly.
• Participate in code review. All our changes go through GitHub pull requests with code review.
• Participate in our support rotation. All engineers rotate through providing second-line support for our product during working hours (currently ~1 day per month).
• Write documentation and detailed pull request / commit messages.
• Understand and avoid security pitfalls. Security is important to us, and we expect everyone to be aware of secure development practices.
• Engage with our software development process, and particularly retrospectives. We hold regular retrospectives to improve our process, which is based on five-week cycles followed by a short wrap-up and planning period.
• Work with your engineering manager and your peers to develop your personal and professional skills. We believe strongly in creating a safe space for learning and feedback. You will have regular 1:1s with your manager to discuss progression against our career ladder.

You can optionally participate in our compensated on-call rotation once you have finished your probation period. We have two engineers on call at all times, a primary responder and an incident coordinator. We do not have a high number of on-call incidents: see for our incident history.

To do this job well you should:

• Have at least two years' deep experience and understanding of building web applications.
• Have experience with software development best practices such as version control, unit testing and continuous integration.
• Be comfortable working in a fully remote team.

Some things that may be a bonus (but learning these on the job will be fine):

• Experience with our core technologies: JavaScript, TypeScript, and React.
• Experience in some of the other key technologies we use (Linux, Docker, Prometheus, Express, MongoDB, Redis, PostgreSQL).

We expect you to:

• Work with us full time.
• Have strong written and verbal communication in English.
• Be available during core hours (1400 to 1700 UK time) for occasional meetings. We are not a fully distributed and asynchronous team, though we do aim to minimize meetings.

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.

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.

Digital Science is a technology company working to make research more efficient.

We invest in, nurture and support innovative businesses and technologies that make all parts of the research process more open and effective.

Our portfolio includes admired brands including Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, ReadCube, Symplectic, IFI Claims, Writefull, and Overleaf.

We believe that together, we can help researchers make a difference.