Research Engineer I, II, III or Senior

Position Function:

Research Engineer to provide computer science support in the development of data management capabilities and visualization techniques for NOAA and its partners. An experienced computer scientist with extensive development experience and cloud-based programming is required to complete this work.

Salary Grade:  15

Please see Staff Compensation Structure or Skilled Crafts and Service Maintenance Compensation Schedule for salary ranges.  For salary grade UC, these positions are "Unclassified" and salary ranges are determined by the hiring department.

Department Profile:

The Northern Gulf Institute (NGI) is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cooperative Institute comprised of six academic institutions that are geographically distributed across the U.S. Gulf Coast states. The six NGI member institutions are Mississippi State University (lead), the University of Southern Mississippi, Florida State University, Louisiana State University, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and the Dauphin Island Sea Laboratory. Together with NOAA and in support of their strategic plan, NGI conducts research on interconnections among Gulf of Mexico environments, habitats, resources, and people and engages in outreach to help others learn about and make decisions based on these interconnections.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Data Collections and Archive: Collect ocean surface marine and meteorological data from the global ocean observing systems, and archive them at NCEI (National Centers for Environmental Information) and the Global Data Assembly Centers (GDACs).
Data fusion into ICOADS (International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set): Ingest multiple data streams into the integrated product ICOADS.
Quality Improvement: Review and improve Quality Control (QC) processes to improve ICOADS quality.
Pursue scholarly and professional interests which will keep his/her expertise at the leading edge of engineering practice through continuing professional duties.

Minimum Qualifications:

Level of appointment (Research I,II,III, or Senor) is commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Research Engineer I - B.S. in engineering or computer science; Less than one year in a related area.

Research Engineer II - B.S. in engineering or computer science; Two years of professional experience in a related area; Requires two years at previous level or equivalent.

Research Engineer III - B.S. in engineering or computer science; Four years of professional experience in a related area; Requires two years at previous level or equivalent.

Senior Research Engineer - B.S. in engineering or computer science; Six years or more years of professional experience in a related area; Requires two years at previous level or equivalent.

Preferred Qualifications:

M.S. in oceanography or meteorology is preferred.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

Knows and effectively uses the fundamental concepts, practices and procedures of a particular field of specialization. Continues development of technical expertise and knowledge through experience and application.
Self-motivated and passionate on the project tasks.
Great teamwork and communication skills in a distributed work environment: Able to complete tasks independently and yet able to effectively communicate with the task manager and team members in remote locations.
Strong Linux computation skills: Effective shell scripting in Linux environment; Effective coding skills using Python; Familiarity with FORTRAN programming.
Familiarity with global ocean observing systems, data collection and processing processes, data and metadata management.
Familiarity with ocean and climate sciences, and able to understand physical and climate signals vs data errors/noises. Knowledge of statistical methods

Working Conditions and Physical Effort

Occasional and/or light lifting required. Limited exposure to elements such as heat, cold, noise, dust, dirt, chemicals, etc., but none to the point of being disagreeable. May involve minor safety hazards where likely result would be cuts, bruises, etc.
Routine deadlines, usually sufficient lead time; variance in work volume predictable; priorities can be anticipated; som