Senior Research Software Engineer

Full-time - 35 hours per annum

Fixed-term positions for 2 years.

Start date: 1 May 2024, or soon thereafter     

We are looking for two senior research software engineers with experience using cloud infrastructure and orchestration technologies such as OpenStack and Kubernetes to join teams developing and deploying science platforms to support analysis of forthcoming multi-PB datasets from the European Space Agency’s Gaia and Euclid missions. 

Both positions are available from 1 May 2024, and the appointments are for an initial period of two years, with the possibility of extension depending on continuing funding streams. 

The Opportunity:

The Institute for Astronomy’s Wide-Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) is involved in the production and curation of a number of large sky survey datasets and supports astronomers analysing them. Increasingly, this involves the use of science platforms, which couple notebook-style programming interfaces and virtualised compute resources, and these positions relate to the deployment and future operation of such systems for ESA space astronomy missions. A prototype system based on the Apache Spark “big data” ecosystem is hosted within a cloud computing environment provided by the STFC-funded IRIS initiative. 

One role requires extending and scaling to increasing data volumes and for new mission datasets and science workflows, working closely with colleagues in Spain under the auspices of the new EU-funded SPACIOUS project. A major aspect of the work will be to generalise system deployment using Kubernetes (or equivalent industry-standard) virtualisation and orchestration to enable flexibility in deployment across other private and commercial clouds. The other role involves working closely with colleagues in WFAU and with IRIS private cloud service providers elsewhere in the UK where a major aspect of the work will be to enhance the existing system to cope with increasing and uneven demand patterns after the next PB-scale release. 

These posts are full-time (35 hours per week). We are open to considering requests for hybrid working (on a non-contractual basis) that combines a mix of remote and regular on-campus working

Your skills and attributes for success: 

• A degree in a relevant discipline
• Significant experience of data-intensive research projects and technical development, applying good software engineering practices
• Experience of cloud computing, distributed computing and virtualisation
• Excellent Python programming skills
• Ability to communicate effectively with colleagues on technical matters

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