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Location

Menlo Park, CA | United States

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Job description

SLAC Job Postings

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a next-generation astronomical facility currently under construction in Chile, with staff distributed across multiple sites, one of which is SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. As its prime mission, Rubin Observatory will undertake the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which will be one of the largest and most comprehensive astronomy surveys of its kind. Rubin will enable countless discoveries in almost every area of modern astronomical research—discoveries made possible by the team that built the Rubin Observatory system, and by the global science community that Rubin Observatory serves. SLAC will be partnering with NSF’s NOIRLab to operate Rubin, and is managing the Rubin US Data Facilities. The US Data Facility at SLAC is the primary data processing center for the LSST data, handling all of the nightly image processing, over a third of the annual data release processing, manages the US Data Access Center hosted in the Google Cloud, and is the primary data archive for Rubin Observatory.

SLAC was the lead lab for construction of the LSST Camera, and will continue to provide scientific and technical support for LSSTCam during Rubin survey operations. SLAC is also the host laboratory for the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. More generally, SLAC has a broad and vibrant scientific program in fundamental physics, with current research topics including cosmic survey science, cosmic microwave background, direct dark matter searches, proton collider physics and neutrino physics, as well as theoretical and computational physics. SLAC and Stanford are partners in the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), which hosts a broad program in astrophysics.

SLAC invites you to apply for the position of software developer with the role of Rubin Science Platform Developer, responsible for inter alia developing services for the Rubin Science Platform. The next few years will be a very exciting time for Rubin Observatory; as the USDF becomes a production facility and image data starts to flow from the biggest digital camera in the world, this is a truly unique opportunity to join the operations team that will make Rubin’s LSST reach its ground-breaking science goals.

Your responsibilities will include the following:

• Report functionally to the SQuaRE Technical Manager and Rubin Data Services Lead, Frossie Economou.
• Design, implement (predominantly in Python) and support infrastructure and servics running on the Rubin Science Platform and other Rubin Data Services platforms.
• Ensure (by architecture and in practice) that services are scalable, robust, maintainable and secure.
• Contribute to the SQuaRE common toolchain (GitHub Actions, configuration management, service deployment infrastructure, etc).
• Writes lucid documentation that effectively captures architectural and implementation choices.
• Share responsibility with other team-members in doing self-directed work that nevertheless fits in a coherent overall system vision reached through shared understanding and team consensus.
• Productively engage with the SQuaRE team lead to keep her well informed of technical decisions, task progress and discuss architectural implications of ongoing work.
• Participate in the collective engineering activities of the SQuaRE team, including performing code reviews, acting as a troubleshooting buddy, contributing to refactoring sprints, engaging in (vigorous but good-natured) technical debates, joining in the team daily stand-ups and weekly co-working session.

To be successful in this position you will bring:

• Bachelor's degree and eight years of relevant experience, or a combination of education and relevant experience. Preferable would be a Master’s degree or higher in computer science / information technology / data science, OR else demonstrable equivalent experience in the field in terms of being able to think analytically and synthetically about the subject, express abstract concepts, ability to reason systematically when troubleshooting etc.
• Ability to quickly learn and adapt to new technologies and programming tools.
• Demonstrated experience in designing, developing, testing, and deploying applications.
• Strong understanding of data design, architecture, relational databases, and data modeling.
• Thorough understanding of all aspects of software development life cycle and quality control practices.
• Ability to select, adapt, and effectively use a variety of programming methods.
• Ability to recognize and recommend needed changes in user and/or operations procedures.
• Hands-on experience architecting, implementing and supporting code in a service architecture (typically 10+ years of experience in a professional capacity at a technically challenging organization or company)
• Fluency in Python 3, including advanced topics such as data structures, pydantic, async, mypy and REST frameworks such as FastAPI
• Excellent software engineering skills such as writing clear, well-encapsulated code, with readable documentation and unit and CI tests
• Experience supporting production services on cloud platforms such as Google Cloud or AWS
• Familiarity with Docker, or similar containerization technologies
• Extensive familiarity with git and distributed development workflows based on online code management systems (preferably GitHub)
• Strong written and oral communication skills to both technical and non-technical clients, including the ability to lucidly explain complex technical topics to colleagues that may not share the same domain expertise.
• Willingness to travel occasionally and represent our work.
• Comfort with collaborating with individuals/teams remotely with chat (e.g. Slack) and teleconferencing
• Being able to work in a self-directed manner in pursuit of the team’s technical goals
• Familiarity with Kubernetes
• Comfortable with GitOps, including GitOps tooling such as ArgoCD
• Familiarity with Github services, particularly Github Actions
• Fluency in another language common in full stack engineering (e.g. go, JavaScript)
• Desire to contribute to open source software
• An interest in astronomy.

Applying for this position, you should know that:

Rubin Data Management (DM) is a team of ~100 individuals in various partner institutions. It is building a data processing system spanning two continents, new state-of-the-art image processing algorithms, petascale computing clusters with tens of thousands of cores, large distributed databases, and next-generation Rubin Science Platform (RSP), among others. All Rubin DM code is published on GitHub and released under a major open-source license; our lingua franca is Python 3. This position has its home in the Science Quality and Reliability Engineering (SQuaRE) team. SQuaRE is a high-performing DevOps team that has developed and deployed many services supporting software development and observatory operations, including much of the Rubin Science Platform. As well as making all our software open source ( SQuaRE also frequently upstreams to open-source projects that we consume.

SQuaRE is a generalist team with the capacity to adjust to a highly skilled individual that may not be an exact fit to a single set of requirements, but that possesses deep equivalent experience. We encourage you not to self-censor and to apply if you feel you fall in this category, addressing how you feel you will be a good match to the needs that give rise to these requirements in your cover letter.

SLAC is committed to increasing the diversity of its staff and to fostering an inclusive and respectful work environment, and we encourage applications from candidates who will diversify the lab’s workforce in scientific computing and fundamental physics. Above all we are looking for someone enthusiastic with a desire to learn and experiment in a highly supportive and collaborative environment.

SLAC offers an excellent benefits package including paid time off, competitive salary commensurate with experience, and an attractive, inclusive and collaborative work environment in the foothills of Silicon Valley. Relocation expenses will be covered.

Given the nature of this position, SLAC is open to on-site, hybrid, and remote work options.

In your application, you should please include a CV and cover letter. We encourage applicants to follow the structure of the AAS advice on the contents of CVs and research statements given here: Applicants are welcome to provide an additional statement (up to one page) that discusses their experience with or commitment to engaging in mentoring, outreach, teaching, public policy, fostering inclusive environments, or activities that diversify the field.

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled, but must be received by February 13, 2024 to ensure full consideration. You should direct questions about the position to the Hiring Manager, Phil Marshall ([email protected]).

SLAC Employee competencies :

• Effective Decisions : Uses job knowledge and solid judgment to make quality decisions in a timely manner.
• Self-Development : Pursues a variety of venues and opportunities to continue learning and developing.
• Dependability : Can be counted on to deliver results with a sense of personal responsibility for expected outcomes.
• Initiative : Pursues work and interactions proactively with optimism, positive energy, and motivation to move things forward.
• Adaptability : Flexes as needed when change occurs, maintains an open outlook while adjusting and accommodating changes.
• Communication : Ensures effective information flow to various audiences and creates and delivers clear, appropriate written, spoken, presented messages.
• Relationships : Builds relationships to foster trust, team collaboration, and a positive climate to achieve common goals.

Physical requirements and working conditions :

• Consistent with its obligations under the law, the University will provide reasonable accommodation to any employee with a disability who requires accommodation to perform the essential functions of his or her job.

Work standards :

• Interpersonal Skills: Demonstrates the ability to work well with Stanford colleagues and clients and with external organizations.
• Promote Culture of Safety: Demonstrates commitment to personal responsibility and value for environment, safety and security; communicates related concerns; uses and promotes safe behaviors based on training and lessons learned. Meets the applicable roles and responsibilities as described in the ESH Manual, Chapter 1—General Policy and Responsibilities:
• Subject to and expected to comply with all applicable University policies and procedures, including but not limited to the personnel policies and other policies found in the University's Administrative Guide,

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Classification Title: Software Developer 3

Duration: Regular Continuing

Job code: 4823

The expected pay range for this position is $124,000 to $186,000 per annum. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/Stanford University provides pay ranges representing its good faith estimate of what the university reasonably expects to pay for a position. The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, departmental budget availability, internal equity, geographic location and external market pay for comparable jobs.

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