What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Scientific Software Engineer position at Space Telescope?
Senior Scientific Software Engineer
Support NASA missions! The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is a multi-mission science and flight operations center for NASA’s flagship observatories on the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus in Baltimore, Maryland. Learn more about our missions.
This position can support hybrid work onsite and at home. Candidates must reside in or be willing to relocate to our local market. (MD, DE, VA, PA, DC & WV).
This position requires US Citizenship or Permanent Residence in order to meet ITAR requirements.
The Data Management Division at STScI is hiring a Senior Scientific Software Engineer, to help advance our state-of-the-art data pipelines and analysis tools for our NASA flagship missions primarily in areas of data visualization. STScI is the science operations center for several NASA missions
STScI has been a major contributor to the open-source scientific Python software stack, including NumPy, Matplotlib, SciPy, Jdaviz and Astropy. We incorporate Jupyter notebooks in data-analysis applications and developing and supporting JupyterLab environments in the cloud. You will be developing both the analysis tools focusing on the challenges of data visualization and the technical aspects of Jupyter notebooks through which they can be accessed and in a cloud environment.
You will contribute not only to software but also to algorithm development, user support, training, and software engineering process improvement.
You will contribute to packages that use numerical & scientific programming for image processing, spectroscopy, photometry, astrometry, general signal processing, modeling and statistics, or numerical simulations.
Responsibilities:
- Design, develop, test, and deploy software to assist astronomers in analyzing astronomical data.
- Collaborate closely with STScI’s technical and scientific staff.
- Maintain and extend existing software packages.
- Build new software packages as needed.
- Communicate and interact with the open-source community in development forums (e.g., GitHub).
- Contribute to scientific and technical papers and conference presentations.
- Provide technical development for Python notebooks focusing on scientific use cases.
Qualifications:
- Proficient in advanced Python
- Experience with a compiled language (C or C ) is beneficial
- Familiarity with:
- Classes
- Context managers
- Exception handling
- Iterators
- Decorators
- Lambda functions
- Experience in:
- Multiprocessing
- Multithreading
- Optimizing performance of Python code for large datasets (a plus)
- Comfortable with:
- Writing unit tests
- Test-driven development
- 8 years of experience in software engineering or scientific programming
Bachelor’s degree in: Computer/Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Astronomy
Education or professional background in astronomy or software development in a research environment is advantageous
Compensation is commensurate with education and experience. Our excellent benefits include:
- Employer retirement contribution – direct STScI contribution of 10% of your salary from your first day
- 12 days sick leave, up to 24 days’ vacation, and 10 paid holidays
- Flexible work schedule with work/life balance
- Comprehensive medical/dental/vision/prescription plans, and more!
Salary range is between $128k - $134k.
Applications received by February 21, 2025 will receive full consideration. Applications received after this date will be considered until the position is filled.
TO APPLY: Senior Scientific Software Engineer
Explore all career opportunities at www.stsci.edu/opportunities
Individuals needing assistance with the employment process can contact us at careers@stsci.edu.
Salary : $128,000 - $134,000
