Research Software Engineer

Salary: Full time starting salary is normally in the range £35,880 to £45,163 with potential progression once in post to £47,874 

Role Summary

This post is established at the University of Birmingham, where the post holder will join a strong and dynamic group of Research Software Engineers with a particular focus on supporting researchers. The Research Software Engineer (RSE) will join a team providing a technical software development and support service to academics from a wide range of disciplines, including those using BEAR’s compute services and those who don’t. This service helps to meet the growing demand for software engineering support and increasing the sustainability of software created for research.

The post holder will collaborate closely with research colleagues from many different academic disciplines and will provide expert knowledge and skills to develop, improve, maintain and support high quality software solutions and access to services, fulfilling the requirements of research projects. The post holder will contribute to developing the knowledge and skills within the research community at all stages of the research software development cycle, e.g. by providing training and coaching sessions as well as promoting the adoption of best practices. 

The RSE would commonly work on two projects simultaneously (grant-funded or free), each at 45%, with the remaining time being used for other tasks in ARC. When an engagement with a research project finishes, the RSE would be allocated to further projects.

Main Duties

• Provide software engineering input to assist the maintenance of the infrastructure and deliver integrated support and services for local and Tier2 research communities.
• Deliver training courses, devising content where applicable or, where qualified, delivering externally validated material, e.g. Software Carpentries. Content will vary from introductory to specialised and advanced levels.
• Liaise and engage with external professional networks within the software engineering sector, such as national RSE networks and the Software Sustainability Institute, to keep informed of the latest developments and sector initiatives.
• Contribute to research papers to be published in academic literature and produce case studies.
• Identify opportunities for service improvement, such as efficiency, reliability and performance of parallel codes and third-party applications, and propose and develop innovative solutions to enrich the user experience, to enhance service delivery, and reduce costs or environmental impacts.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications) preferably in a subject with a strong software engineering component or relevant technical qualification and considerable relevant experience. Where no equivalent qualification is held, significant practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of more demanding roles will be required demonstrating the conceptual understanding required.
• Experience successfully developing software in collaboration with other people, ideally in a research environment.
• Experience of programming and programming languages – including strong expertise in at least one of Python, R, C++ or Fortran.
• Knowledge of good practice for software development and analysis processes, tools and techniques.
• Experience with version control in git.

Informal enquiries to Adrian Garcia, email: a.garcia.1@bham.ac.uk 

To download the full job description and details of this position and submit an electronic application online please click on the 'Apply' button above:

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working.

Closes: 16^th February 2025

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