Senior Research Software Engineer/ IT Center
University of Helsinki's IT Center is looking for a
Senior Research Software Engineer
to a permanent, full-time position. The desired start date is January 2025, or as agreed.
Are you more of a programmer than your researcher colleagues? Are you more of a researcher than commercial developers? Do you fit in both, but have a home in neither? If you are looking for a career path combining the interesting parts of bold fields, you want to be a research software engineer (RSE) working with us – see https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01516-2 for an overview of what being a RSE means.
We are in the process of establishing RSE support service for the university, and are now looking for a senior person to help shape and grow the service.
You will:
- Provide software development and consulting as a team service, depending on demand from research groups.
- Provide one-on-one and group research support from a software, programming, computing, data, and infrastructure perspective.
- Provide good role models of best open science practices, from data management to open source software.
- As needed and depending on interest, teaching and other research infrastructure support.
- Continually learn new skills as part of our team providing different kind of technical research support functions
- Be involved in establishing the practices for RSE services at the university level.
- Establish collaboration with RSE teams in other universities (e.g. https://scicomp.aalto.fi/rse/)
Qualifications
Candidates of diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply, and every candidate will be evaluated according to their unique experiences.
The position requires a PhD degree in a computational field or a PhD degree with research experience in some computational field. An ideal candidate has:
- Research experience (e.g. postdoctoral research) in some computational field
- Experience and concrete demonstrations of practical computing and software activities in a research context
- Strong communication skills and desire to mentor other researchers with understanding and compassion, also outside of your own field
- Good English language proficiency
- General technical fluency in computational aspects, including programming, HPC environments, and compilers
- Knowledge of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, including computational aspects of large-scale models (e.g. foundation models)
- Specific technical knowledge in selected areas, such as HPC module environments, parallel computation especially in multi-GPU settings, open source software development, and/or data management
Salary
The job title is IT Specialist (Research Software Engineer). The salary is based on the collective contract of Finnish universities, demand levels MV10–MV11 in the salary system of Support and specialist staff, depending on the applicant's experience and skills. In addition to that will be paid a personal performance component. At the beginning of the contract the total salary will be between 4100€ and 5300€.
Workplace
The University of Helsinki has four campuses located in Helsinki, and the role may require occasional travel between these campuses. However, the primary location for this position will initially be the Kumpula campus. In addition to collaborating with researchers, you will work closely with the IT Center's IT for Science team, which is also located on the Kumpula campus. The IT Center is an independent unit at the University of Helsinki, serving as a centralized hub for most of the University’s shared IT services. The unit employs approximately 190 specialists in various support and expert roles.
The IT for Science group is responsible for developing and maintaining high-performance computing (HPC) environments at the University of Helsinki, providing consulting and support services to researchers in areas such as computing hardware, scientific computing software, programming environments, data management, storage solutions, and selected services offered by the national Center for Scientific Computing (CSC) as well as developing and maintaining infrastructures and environments for data science, machine learning, and deep learning.
In this position you will be also co-operating with FCAI (https://fcai.fi/), ELLIS Unit Helsinki (https://fcai.fi/ellis-unit-helsinki), and the forthcoming ELLIS Institute Finland (https://fcai.fi/ellis-institute-finland).
Application
Applications are sent through the University of Helsinki Recruitment System via the Apply Now button. Applicants who have a helsinki.fi username and a valid employment/grant/visitor contract at the University of Helsinki are requested to submit their application via the Employee login button.
The deadline for applications is 2025-01-07@23:59 (UTC+2). Please note! Application time extended.
Please submit your application, which includes the following PDF-documents in English:
- Separate cover letter (~2-3 pages) that describes your individual profile as clearly as possible. Describe e.g. what being RSE means for you, how your previous career experience lead to being interested in this position, and elaborate on your technical competence. Be specific, e.g. highlighting some collaborative projects you have been involved in and explaining your previous experiences in RSE-like roles. We encourage also outlining a vision of how you would like to develop the RSE activities at our university.
- A normal professional or academic CV including
- a list of your technical and programming tools and level of proficiency (e.g. basic/proficient/expert). This is the time to show the breadth of your experience.
- Github link or other public sample code. If not available, whatever is possible to demonstrate past programming experience. Please highlight one or two of your outstanding research software projects.
More information
For position-related questions, please contact IT Manager Mr. Jukka Hienola, jukka.hienola (at) helsinki.fi or call +358503160691. If you need support with the recruitment system, please contact hr-erla (at) helsinki.fi.