Job Description

Application Deadline: The position will be posted Saturday, July 10th.

Relocation: Relocation assistance is available for this position.

Work Authorization: UCAR/NCAR will sponsor a work visa to fill this position.

Salary:
Hiring Range $97,404 $121,754
Full Salary Range $97,404 $121,754 $158,282

Benefits: UCAR affirms its continuing commitment to developing, providing, and administering its employee benefit programs with due consideration for equal employment opportunity and diversity guidelines. UCAR's rich package of employee benefits includes medical, dental, vision, education assistance, retirement, and life insurance. UCAR offers a variety of programs designed to assist with work-life balance including flexible work alternatives, paid time off and 14 weeks of paid parental leave.

Where You Will Work:

Located in Boulder, Colorado, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) serves and participates in a collaborative community of researchers and educators who are dedicated to understanding the atmosphere -- the air around us -- and the complex processes that make up the Earth system, from the ocean floor to the Sun’s core. UCAR manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) on behalf of the National Science Foundation and the university community.

Where You Will Work:

The JCSDA is a multi-agency research center, hosted by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and UCAR Community Programs (UCP), committed to improving and accelerating the quantitative use of research and operational satellite data in weather, ocean, climate and environmental analysis and prediction systems. The interagency partnership assimilates many types of data from conventional and satellite sources by creating integrated modeling systems. The JCSDA transitions this research to operational and university communities through a robust data infrastructure and open-source software.

What You Will Do:

This position is under the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) and provides partial support for the Joint Effort for Data Assimilation Integration (JEDI) project. This JEDI is an inter-agency plan aimed at developing a unified community Data Assimilation system for research and operations. To cater for each partner’s needs, JEDI is generic with respect to the model for which it will provide initial conditions. For validation purposes as well as for innovative scientific research, we aim to provide a user-friendly interface to run experiments that can accommodate each partner’s models, for individual Earth system components such as atmosphere or ocean, or fully coupled models and for applications ranging from rapid refresh short term forecasting (a few hours) to seasonal prediction. By its collaborative nature, the JCSDA uses computing resources provided by its funding agencies (NOAA, NASA, DoD) and other collaborators (NCAR, UKMO) as well as cloud computing which creates additional portability challenges and also opportunities for new approaches to validating scientific developments.

Under supervision of the project lead, the Software Engineer III designs and implements a generic environment to run the JEDI system and perform scientific validation experiments. The environment includes a user interface and software tools to manage dependencies between computational tasks, to submit tasks on dedicated high-performance computers or cloud computing services, to monitor execution of suites of tasks and to configure the tasks. It ensures the proper traceability and archiving of scientific experiments. The environment will support all models that are supported in the rest of the JEDI system.

This position will be located at UCAR (FL4) in Boulder, CO.

Responsibilities:

Undertake environment development tasks as assigned by the supervisor. This may include developing platform-independent software, learning and improving workflow control suite in support of scientific research activities and writing software to help manage scientific experiments.
Assist and support scientists and software engineers from JCSDA and partner organizations in running JEDI experiments on HPC systems and cloud computing resources.
Use and promote the use of software development best practices within JCSDA and project partner organizations.
Prepare documentation and material for tutorials and educational events to the JCSDA scientists and software engineers and the scientific community. May contribute to peer-reviewed publications as appropriate.

In consultation with supervisor, makes decisions about computer code and software development related to the following: portability, extensibility, documentation, web tools, development language selection. Typically, these will include:

Identifying commonality in code and opportunities for abstraction and refactoring
Assessing whether sufficient information is available to choose appropriate algorithms and data structures
Assessing the robustness and failure modes of code
Taking a logical and methodical approach to tracking down problems in software

What You Need:

Education and Years of Experience:

Bachelor's degree in computer-related field; and 8-12 years of experience in a related technical area or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

This position requires competency in fundamental concepts of computer science. This position interacts several times per day with various members of a development group comprised of scientific and software engineering staff. The software development centers on developing an infrastructure for running validation experiments for the JEDI data assimilation system using cloud computing services or dedicated HPC systems.

Knowledge through previous experience or education - required:

Excellent knowledge of Python
Excellent knowledge of object oriented and generic programming
Working knowledge of shell scripting
Modern software engineering practices: gathering and analysis of requirements, design, prototyping, version control, integration, testing, and documentation
Developing software in a Unix environment
Able to integrate multiple development tools into coherent environment.
Ability to contribute to enhancement of existing software processes.

Skills and Abilities - required:

 Excellent English language communication skills
Ability to work well within a diverse and multidisciplinary team
Desire to actively promote good software development practices

Skills and Abilities - desired:

Experience using web application development tools

Applicant Notes:

An Inclusion Statement will be required for all applicants candidates who move into the interview stage. This statement should address past efforts, as well as future vision and plans to advocate for and advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the organization and/or field of work.

This position is subject to work location requirements for obtaining access to facilities and research systems. These requirements may include a combination of national security checks, credit checks, fingerprinting, or other security clearance or work authorization requirements.
Non-risk based position:  A pre-employment screening is conducted in conjunction with an offer for employment. This screening may involve verifying or reviewing any of the following relevant information: restricted parties screening, employment verification, performance records of internal candidates, education verification, reference checks, verification of professional licenses, certifications, and Motor Vehicle Records. UCAR complies with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) is an equal opportunity/equal access/affirmative action employer that strives to develop and maintain a diverse workforce. UCAR is committed to providing equal opportunity for all employees and applicants for employment and does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, creed, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or pregnancy. 

Whatever your intersection of identities, you are welcome at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). We are committed to inclusivity and promoting an equitable environment that values and respects the uniqueness of all members of our organization.