Are you passionate about open access? Are you a driven individual who can assume responsibility for the sustainability and development of the most diverse and accessible index of quality open access journals in the world? Do you want to work in an inclusive and open organisation and become a new member of the DOAJ Family? Join DOAJ as our new Platform Manager, where you will work closely with our technical partners to ensure that doaj.org advances our mission. Applications will close 12:00 UTC on Friday, 19th September 2025.

About DOAJ

DOAJ offers free online access and visibility to the thousands of publishers, journals and authors who produce quality, peer-reviewed, open access content. It is a unique and extensive database of diverse open access journals worldwide, and its content is freely available online for everyone.

We are a mission-driven, global organisation registered in Denmark. We are a virtual team distributed across Europe, Africa, and Latin America. We are scholarly communication professionals, publishers, librarians, and academics working collaboratively to maintain DOAJ and its services open to all. We are primarily contractors working part-time.

About the role

We are seeking an experienced digital platform manager to join our team who will ensure that doaj.org continues to grow and meet the demands of our user community. To give you an idea of scale, our API has received 216 million hits so far this year. We’ve had 8.1 million unique visitors and 16.1 million page views.

The platform is built on open-source technologies and is available on GitHub. You have project management skills and understand the mechanics of prioritisation, agile releases, and maintaining a Kanban. You might even have had experience as a digital product manager. If you have experience in an IT-facing role or even as a developer, this will also help you understand the breadth of the role.

As our new Platform Manager, you will be responsible for translating requests for development (small fixes or larger projects) into development requests and prioritising them, as well as bugs. Everything is logged in our GitHub repository. You are the pipeline between DOAJ and our technical team at Cottage Labs.

You are committed to our ground principles: research should be open and available to everyone, regardless of gender, social or economic status, geographic location, ethnicity, or race. 

The role is full-time, or at least 30 hours per week.

The Platform Manager has responsibilities in the following areas:

  • Strategy and leadership
    You will provide support for DOAJ’s strategic and annual planning processes, using insights from the platform to help develop strategic and operational direction. You are responsible for a technical strategy around DOAJ and its services. You will help identify opportunities where DOAJ can develop new services.
  • Platform development
    It is your responsibility that DOAJ.org remains stable, responsive and continues to adapt to the needs of its users. You will watch developments in scholarly publishing and describe the platform’s technical objectives, ensuring that DOAJ as a service is always developing in line with community needs.
    You are responsible for representing non-strategic but essential technical development requirements back to the organisation and are DOAJ’s usability and accessibility champion.
    Liaising with the Operations Manager, you will manage the IT development budget.
    Although doaj.org is our primary product, you can maintain a holistic view of all DOAJ’s services and websites, ensuring they are technically aligned.
  • Account management
    You are the chief contact with Cottage Labs and hold regular meetings to discuss prioritisation, technical strategy and development with our account lead there.
  • Project management
    You are responsible for task scoping, assessment and prioritisation, as well as weeding out older tasks that are no longer relevant. You will work with the Deputy Head of Editorial (Workflow) and the technical lead at Cottage Labs to scope, prioritise and schedule tasks and project work.
    Larger projects, some of which span several years, involve planning, management, and administration with all stakeholders, as well as ensuring effective internal communication on progress and timelines.
  • Metadata
    You are responsible for DOAJ’s metadata and the service built around it. You will bring new opportunities for strategic partnerships and projects, built around metadata, to the Executive Team. You are responsible for realising the full value and impact of DOAJ’s metadata throughout the scholarly research dissemination infrastructure.
    With a focus on quality and consistency, you will maximise DOAJ’s interoperability and integration through outreach to organisations that provide and those that ingest our metadata.
  • Testing
    You will coordinate with the DOAJ team regarding testing new features. You will translate testing results into actionable changes and communicate them to the developers. You are responsible for keeping the testing and release Gantt chart up to date.
  • Shared services and strategic partnerships
    You are responsible for ensuring the uptime and stability of DOAJ’s sister projects: blog.doaj.org, thinkchecksubmit.org and oajournals-toolkit.org/fr. Each is a WordPress site and its own hosting contract.
    Outside of DOAJ, you are responsible for ensuring that DOAJ is present in relevant technical partnerships with key stakeholders, such as other journal platforms. 

Requirements

In your letter, you should illustrate to what extent you meet the requirements described in the Essential and Knowledge and Skills list.

Essential Knowledge and Skills
  • Proven experience in product or platform management, ideally within publishing technologies, scholarly communication, libraries or information science.
  • Strong understanding of open-source technologies, interoperability standards (e.g. OAI-PMH, Crossref, ORCID), APIs and data formats (e.g JSON and XML).
  • A good understanding of the structure, role, and flow of scholarly metadata across the research ecosystem.
  • Knowledge of web accessibility standards and design, and their impact on user experience.
  • Proven experience in project management, including the use of GitHub or similar tools, and user testing.
  • Fluent in written and spoken English, with excellent customer service skills and the ability to resolve complex user issues.

It is an advantage if you have a degree in computer science, business, information science, or another related discipline and are fluent in more than one language.

Essential Personal Qualities
  • Strategic thinker: Aligns platform development with DOAJ’s mission and uses business intelligence to inform priorities.
  • User-focused: Strong empathy for journal editors, libraries, researchers, and other users. 
  • Excellent communicator: Builds trust across a global community and articulates ideas clearly and concisely.
  • Organised and methodical: Balances multiple projects and deadlines with attention to detail.
  • Problem-solver: Tackles challenges with creativity, calmness, and resourcefulness.
  • Collaborative team player: Works effectively across internal teams, external developers, and partner organisations.
  • Adaptable: Comfortable with evolving technologies, changing needs, and uncertainty.
  • Integrity and accountability: Transparent in decision-making; learns from mistakes.
  • Curious and open: Keeps up with developments in open infrastructure, scholarly metadata, and platform technologies.

Since we work remotely, you must be a fully integrated member of the team. Therefore, you must:

  • Be online at some point between 09:00 and 17:00 CET
  • Manage your schedule and work independently
  • Have a stable and reliable internet connection
  • Attend scheduled online meetings and in-person meetings

More details

We are currently only set up to employ staff by contract in Denmark. Applications on a self-employed basis are welcome from anywhere in the world (but allowing for the timezone requirement above). Occasionally, you will need to travel to meetings and industry events.

Compensation

The Managing Director will agree with you on the level of compensation upon appointment. The level of compensation depends on your qualifications and experience, as well as your location in the world and the type of contract.

Diversity

DOAJ is an adopting organisation of the C4DISC Joint Statement of Principles and strives to improve diversity and inclusion in scholarly communications. It is extremely important to DOAJ that these principles are reflected in our organisational structure and underpin our day-to-day operations.

Questions

If you have questions about the role, working for DOAJ, or the application process, please email Dominic Mitchell (dominic@doaj.org).

How to apply

Please send a cover letter and a copy of your resumé/CV to Lene Rasmussen, DOAJ Operations Manager (lene@doaj.org), by 12:00 UTC on Friday, 19th September 2025. In your letter, you should illustrate to what extent you meet the requirements described in the Essential and Knowledge and Skills list.