Research Software Engineer/Senior Research Software Engineer

Job Description:

Research Software Engineer/Senior Research Software Engineer

Office of Information Technology

The Center for Computation and Visualization (CCV, https://ccv.brown.edu) exists to provide the scientific and technical computing expertise required to advance computational research and support Brown’s academic mission. This often involves collaborating with researchers on projects across a diverse array of fields. Our team comprises data scientists and research software engineers with expertise in disciplines such as mathematics, statistics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, environmental sciences, psychology, and computer science. This diversity allows us to match each project to people with the right expertise.

CCV seeks a Research Software Engineer (RSE) eager to help us on our mission. The RSE will work together with other members of our team and the Brown community to develop and deploy high-quality software packages and software engineering solutions that support Brown researchers and their collaborators. The ideal candidate is a motivated, agile learner who stays current with emerging technologies in areas such as scientific programming, web development and deployment, data management, data science and visualization. The RSE should be, or quickly become, proficient in best practices in software engineering with a strong emphasis on reproducibility. This includes version control, testing, continuous integration, containerized applications and multiple programming languages for data science and visualization. All members of CCV are encouraged to take ownership of projects, mentor interns, and lead outreach activities to promote CCV.

CCV embraces a community enriched and enhanced by diverse dimensions, including race, ethnicity and national origins, disability status, gender and gender identity, sexuality, class and religion. We believe diversity brings innovation and progress. We are especially committed to increasing the representation of those populations that have been historically underrepresented in STEM. We are committed to attracting, recruiting and retaining a diverse team. We especially encourage individuals from underrepresented groups to join our community.

Key responsibilities of the position are:

• Develop and deploy software packages and engineering solutions.

• Produce and present workshops, technical presentations and outreach activities in support of CCV and the Office of Information Technology (OIT).

• Senior RSEs will additionally lead projects and serve as the technical point of contact for faculty researchers.

Successful candidates should have as a minimum:

• Bachelor's degree with strong computational emphasis (or equivalent experience).

• For a grade 10 position (RSE): 1 – 2 years experience in a related field.

• For a grade 11 position (Senior RSE): 4 – 6 years experience in a related field and demonstrated experience in advising researchers in support of their grants and technical projects.

• Proficiency with at least one programming language (e.g., Javascript, Python, Julia, R, Haskell, MATLAB, Java, Swift, C++, C#, Rust, C).

• Familiarity with Linux/UNIX systems and shell scripting.

• Experience writing, packaging and/or deploying scientific libraries, web applications, and/or databases.

• Experience with, or interest in learning, JavaScript libraries/frameworks (e.g., React, Next.js).

• Strong analytical abilities.

• Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills.

• Enthusiasm for learning new technologies and concepts from a variety of research fields.

• High professional standards with the ability to manage competing requirements in a diverse user population.

• Willingness and ability to support a diverse and inclusive environment.

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Highly preferred candidates will have several of the following:

• An advanced degree (Master’s or Doctorate) with a strong computational emphasis,

• Experience with distributed version control systems (e.g., Git).

• Interest in user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design.

• Experience using database query languages (e.g., SQL).