Description

Job Summary

The Content Engineer II is responsible for designing, developing, enhancing, and supporting publishing systems, digital workflows, and content delivery applications, while combining deep expertise in PDF engineering with a hands-on Java/J2EE background. Engineer II works independently on complex and ambiguous problems, contributes substantially to technical discussions and cross-team initiatives.

This role combines robust software engineering capabilities (Java/J2EE, Spring Boot, REST APIs, Cloud) with specialized expertise in content engineering (PDF standards, PDF/A, XML/DTDs like JATS, LaTeX, MathJax, and graphics processing). The Engineer II ensures platform integrity, seamless partner and vendor content integrations, technical governance, and adherence to scholarly publishing standards that power core digital publishing assets and drive organizational revenue.

The Engineer II typically reports to a Manager and is expected to apply secure-by-design principles and stay current with evolving technology trends.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as senior technical lead for PDF engineering, standards, compliance, and document quality - working with greater autonomy across a broader set of publishing and content delivery platforms.
• Take on the most complex & advanced PDF modification, security, fonts/graphics, accessibility, and PDF/A, PDF/X compliance work, exercising independent judgment on approach, while partnering with Enterprise Architecture and stakeholders.
• Work directly with IT Infrastructure & Enterprise Architecture teams, Business Stakeholders, and other technical stakeholders on complex, multi-team initiatives, providing technical expertise and influencing direction.
• Ability to present innovative design ideas and solutions as a subject matter expert of content objects, content engineering and publishing systems. Advise and guide junior team members.
• Design and automate scalable PDF workflows for higher-complexity, higher-ambiguity problems using industry tools and programmatic APIs, requiring minimal day-to-day direction.
• Independently diagnose and resolve complex, systemic PDF corruption and malformed XREF issues; extend and improve diagnostic and auto-repair tooling (Java/Python, Apache PDFBox, GenAI-assisted validation) used across the team.
• Lead the onboarding and technical integration of the most complex or non-standard third-party publishers, analyzing intricate content structures and building integration pipelines with minimal oversight, while coordinating with architecture and partner teams on edge cases.
• Actively participate in requirement reviews, technical design, and code reviews and produce supporting documentation. Apply secure-by-design principles and security best practices throughout design and development activities.
• Independently design, implement, and maintain the more complex process workflows, content management, and custom Java/J2EE applications, including design, hands-on implementation, and maintenance/support requiring minimum supervision.
• Responsible for maintaining high quality of deliverables through unit testing, integration/system testing, production validation, and post-production support.
• Contribute substantively to IEEE Publishing's Technical Specifications (PDF Standards, Content Delivery and Distribution), taking primary drafting responsibility for complex sections.
• Guide XML and DTD standards within the organization, thorough understanding of JATS, ONIX, NLM and DocBook DTDs. Apply deep knowledge of XML and DTD standards to resolve cross-platform issues, surfacing edge cases and recommending solutions to the Engineering teams.
• Stay current with evolving technology trends and proactively bring recommendations to architecture and engineering leadership for evaluation; apply secure-by-design principles and security best practices in day-to-day work.
• Represent IEEE in industry technical working groups (STM, NISO, PDF Association) on more complex or higher visibility topics, and bring strategic insight back to inform IT compliance and adoption decisions. Serve as a broader technical liaison with various Business Units.
• Establishes best practices around font technologies (Adobe, TrueType, OpenType, Unicode) and graphics processing. Provide guidance of Math rendering using MathJax and LaTex.
• Maintain and author various Technical Specifications for IEEE Publishing including PDF Standards, Content Delivery and Distribution. Share these with external partners and provide guidance on the adoption of these standards.

Travel Information

• 0% Domestic and International

Additional Responsibilities

• Strong understanding of PDF Architecture and PDF technology, PDF Validation, XMP Metadata, PDF Compression, Font Technologies, Content Integrity.
• Deep knowledge of PDF Tools like Callas pdfToolbox, iText, Apache PDFBox, Enfocus Pitstop and Switch
• Strong command of XML DTD and Schemas, ONIX Metadata, IEEE PDF Specification, Scholarly Publishing Standards, Content Packaging and Content Delivery Standards
• Thorough hands-on experience in Java/J2EE, Spring/Spring Boot, Hibernate, REST, and object-oriented programming. Ability to work independently.
• Fluency in Python and associated libraries and integration of AI /LLM tools, sufficient to build and improve content frameworks and troubleshoot issues.
• Proficient in RDBMS/SQL (MySQL) and NoSQL with experience in SOAP/REST web services, JSON/XML data formats, and CI/CD integration using Jenkins, GitHub, and Maven/Gradle.
• Exposure to AWS services (S3, EC2, Lambda, CloudFront, RDS), Docker, and modern cloud/deployment practices
• Strong communication skills for engaging with stakeholders, technical teams, external partner organizations and management, ensuring effective delivery of development, integration, and deployment tasks. Ability to present effectively to small groups.
• Demonstrated ability to influence peers, technical teams, and stakeholders across teams without direct authority - providing technical input on cross-team initiatives.
• Ability to translate technical risk and trade-offs into business terms, communicate decisions clearly in writing, and frame timely escalations with concise problem, impact, and decision context.
• Work as part of Scrum teams and follow Agile development principles. Report progress to Manager or Project lead on a continuing basis.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience Computer Science or related field Req

Work Experience

• 4-7 years of related work experience, including working independently on complex technical problems and contributing to cross-team initiatives Req
• 4-7 years Hands-on experience with Java/J2EE development, Spring/Spring Boot, REST. Front-end development experience using JavaScript (jQuery/Angular/ReactJS), HTML5, and CSS3 Req
• Less than 2 years Experience with content-engineering technologies such as PDF libraries (Apache PDFBox, iText) and XML/JATS publishing standards Pref

Other Requirements:

As defined in IEEE Policies, individuals currently serving on an IEEE board or committee are not eligible to apply.

PLEASE NOTE: This position is not budgeted for employer-sponsored immigration support, this includes all persons in F (both CPT and OPT), J, H, L, or O status.

For information on work demands and conditions required for this position, please consult the reference document, ADA Requirements. This position is classified under Category I - Office Positions.