Research Software Engineer

UCL is a world-leading teaching and research university, often ranked in the top ten in the world with an annual turnover of well over £1 billion. Part of UCL’s vision is to take on the hardest global challenges. The UCL Centre for Advanced Research Computing (ARC) is UCL’s new institute for infrastructure and innovation in digital research - the supercomputers, datasets, software and people that make computational science and digital scholarship possible.

We are an innovative hybrid: a professional services department that delivers reliable and secure infrastructure and services to UCL research groups, and a laboratory for research and innovation in the application of advanced computational and data intensive research methods, working in partnership with academics from all fields. We are a home for the research technology professionals - research software engineers, HPC systems engineers, dev-ops specialists, data engineers, data scientists and data stewards - who support and collaborate in the delivery of UCL research.

ARC roles can be both research roles, contributing to the scholarly life of the university, carrying out research and teaching, and professional service roles, delivering shared capabilities and following professional best practice. You will be part of ARC’s community of staff scientists and research technology professionals, both delivering the services and systems which make data and compute intensive research possible, and discovering and innovating new tools, practices, and systems in this field.

As part of being a Research Software Developer you will be required to, but not limited to, the following accountabilities:

• Collaborate with research colleagues from across UCL to construct, improve, and maintain codes used for modelling, analysis, synthesis, simulation and more.
• Rapidly assimilate research context through publications and conversation with research groups, understand the computational algorithms, requirements and interfaces needed within the research effort, and construct high quality software for research colleagues.
• Provide consulting on software practices, techniques, design, and architecture to research groups, helping to build robust and maintainable research software.

For this post, we welcome applications from those interested in translational research and entrepreneurship, because working with our UCL Centre for Digital Innovation would be a central activity. Familiarity with cloud computing, infrastructure as code and general DevOps practices is highly desirable, as is previous experience of working with start-up companies or in technology transfer settings.

To be considered for this role you will have the following essential experience:

• PhD Degree OR equivalent professional expertise appropriate to the role. This is a role in a research community and we are great believers in the value of research degrees.
• Experience with the authorship, development, and maintenance of software for research & development in any field.
• Knowledge of and commitment to software engineering best practices.
• Experience authoring technical documents to a high standard.

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits:

• 41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays and 6 closure days).
• Additional 5 days’ annual leave purchase scheme.
• Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE).
• Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan.
• Relocation scheme for certain posts.
• On-site gym.
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay.
• Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service.
• Discounted medical insurance.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce. These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.