Research Software Engineer II

Do you have a background in computational research and love to write code? Do you want to help enable and advance groundbreaking research in space physics? If so, Princeton University's Research Computing department is recruiting a Research Software Engineer to join its RSE Group and the Space Physics Group in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences.

In the Space Physics Group, you will create software that supports the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission. The probe launched in 2025 to explore the details of particle acceleration and the Sun’s interaction with the local interstellar medium. The instruments on board collect and transmit data back to Earth, providing IMAP scientists with opportunities to make new discoveries about the global heliosphere.

In the RSE Group, we collectively provide computational research expertise to multiple divisions within the University. As a central team of software experts, we are focused on improving the quality, performance, and sustainability of Princeton’s computational research software. Our group is committed to building collaborative environments in which the best software engineering practices are valued, and to sharing and applying cross-disciplinary computational techniques in new and emerging areas.

In this position, you will be an integral member of the IMAP mission, focused on cutting-edge space physics research. You will join teams of researchers contributing to the development of efficient and scalable research code by providing computational expertise in software development, algorithm selection, and optimization. Research Software Engineers work closely with a team of researchers and Research Software Engineers to leverage their communication and problem-solving skills to build complete software solutions crucial to the advancement of research.

If you have a background in scientific programming, high performance computing, or academic research you have the right skill set to make an immediate impact on multiple high-profile research projects. You will be poised to grow and expand your programming and data analytics expertise into a dynamic new set of research problems. This position will require you to work closely with colleagues in the departments of Astrophysical Sciences and Research Computing, as well as with faculty, student/postdoctoral researchers, and technical staff to enable and accelerate their research computing efforts.

This role functions within a dynamic, supportive team environment that permits diverse backgrounds to thrive, including those wanting to make a career change and those with non-traditional career tracks, educational paths, or life experiences. If this environment sounds like a strong match or even an exciting challenge, we encourage you to apply and use your cover letter to explain why you would be a good fit for the role.

This is an 18-month benefits-eligible term position with a possibility of extension.

Application of Domain Expertise:

• Fully understands the role within the research domain and working towards advanced proficiency in the underlying science, math, statistics, data analysis, and algorithms of computational research questions at a level sufficient to converse with Princeton’s world-class researchers to support the ongoing work. This will consist of independent research (reading publications etc) and/or studying existing code bases.
• Working independently or in collaboration with a team, initiate and/or maintain open collaboration with researchers. Regularly meet with, listen to, and ask questions of researchers to ensure that engineered solutions fit the research need. Understand and address software engineering questions that arise in research planning.
• Apply appropriate domain specific algorithms, techniques and code to advance software engineering in the research field.

RSE:

• Working independently with minimal guidance to understand and translate research priorities into flexible software solutions
• Independently or in collaboration with a team, use researcher-provided requirements and desired end state to build complete software solutions. To achieve this, RSEs are expected to figure out the problem through independent or team research, build complete software solutions, and provide full documentation for usage by the research team.
• Identify solutions for each project, establish a set of applicable best practices uniquely appropriate for that project (e.g version control, continuous integration and continuous delivery, software design, programming model, etc.), and enable long term maintainability and sustainability by documenting the projects in a descriptive and appropriately detailed manner. Independently or in collaboration with a team, provide technical expertise and guidance for improving the performance and quality of new and existing code bases through hands-on work with ongoing research.
• Responding to evolving research needs, apply research software engineering experience to develop robust software solutions to solve challenging research problems. Port, debug, tune and potentially parallelize existing research code to meet criteria set by the research needs.
• Develop software tools that allow researchers to interact in flexible ways with extremely large data sets.
• Independently or in collaboration with a team, develops scope and project management plans, meets milestone delivery timeline, and communicates with the research team. Communicate software engineering concepts with project teams consisting of domain experts with a varying degree of software engineering knowledge.

Professional Development:

• Actively expanding technical skill set and expertise to include software development tools and techniques, software engineering best practices, programming languages, high-performance computing hardware, and computational research solutions.

Essential Qualifications:

• 4-8 years’ experience as a Research Software Engineer. This includes graduate level and postdoctoral work.
• Strong programming skills, particularly in the languages used in scientific computing applications (specifically Python).
• Experience with Python libraries (especially NumPy) and the Python ecosystem of tools for managing environments and code testing, linting, dependency management and packaging (e.g., Poetry), etc.
• Demonstrated success: 
  ○ Consistently using conventional and readable coding style.
  ○ Creating comprehensive and well-written documentation.
  ○ Using version control systems.
  ○ Using CI/CD pipelines.
• Demonstrated successes contributing to a collaborative research team. 
• Ability to work independently. 
• Ability to learn new programming languages and technologies beyond area of core knowledge. 
• Ability to communicate effectively with a diverse user base having varied levels of technical proficiencies. 
• Ability to manage code bases with agility in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. 
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, sciences, or related computational field required. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working in an academic research environment.
• Experience tuning and optimizing research software and algorithms. 
• Experience developing research software outside of core domain knowledge. 
• Background in a related domain is helpful but not required.
• Experience working with cloud computing platforms (especially AWS).
• Experience with Docker and Node.js
• Experience building, executing, and maintaining complex data analysis pipelines.
• Experience packaging and publishing data deliverables (e.g., in accordance with NASA’s Data Publication Process).
• A Masters/Ph.D. in computer science, applied science, or other related field with a strong computational focus or equivalent experience in a research setting preferred.

Princeton University is an Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

The University considers factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's qualifications, work experience, education/training, key skills, market, collective bargaining agreements as applicable, and organizational considerations when extending an offer. The posted salary range represents the University's good faith and reasonable estimate for a full-time position; salaries for part-time positions are pro-rated accordingly.

If the salary range on the posted position shows an hourly rate, this is the baseline; the actual hourly rate may be higher, depending on the position and factors listed above.

The University also offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees. Please see this link for more information.