Research Software Engineer 

for Scientific Data Management Services 

 

Job Description

Port d’Informació Científica (PIC, http://www.pic.es) is searching for computer scientists, software engineers or science graduates motivated to work in e-infrastructure for international fundamental research projects. 

 

PIC participates in the ESCAPE EU H2020 project (http://www.escape2020.eu) that aims to address the Open Science challenges shared by a number of top-class European research facilities: CTA, SKA, KM3Net, EST, ELT, HL-LHC and FAIR. The objective of the project is to develop solutions to handle the large data sets produced by these experiments. ESCAPE also aims to support the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) thanks to open data management, cross-border and multi-disciplinary open environment, according to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) principles.

 

The successful applicant will participate in the ESCAPE project Data Infrastructure work package (https://projectescape.eu/wp2_escape.html) whose goal is to build a Data Lake for efficiently managing very large volumes of scientific data (Petabyte scale). The program of work will focus on integration and testing of data management tools, plugin development and customization to specific scientific use cases, monitoring and benchmarking.

 

Degree and area of specialization

BSc in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or related field.

 

Required Skills

●      GNU/Linux administration experience. 

●      GNU/Linux container related technologies.

●      Knowledge of scripting languages such as Python.

●      Experience with service monitoring and troubleshooting.

●      Experience using common software development tools, such as revision control, software builds, and support tickets.

 

Experience in any of the following is a plus

●      Automated deployment and management of containerized applications using kubernetes.

●      Configuration management systems and automated server deployment.

●      Large scale storage systems and distributed filesystems.

●      Distributed computing or HPC (e.g., cluster, grid, or cloud computing)

●      Server deployment and orchestration in Cloud environments.

  

 

Applications          

Applicants must be nationals of the European Union, or of countries in the European Economic Area or Switzerland, or have a valid Spanish work permit. All documentation will be handled electronically and exclusively in pdf format. Applications should be sent to pic.jobs@pic.es indicating reference number PIC2019-ESCAPE-1 attaching a Curriculum Vitae and any other relevant documentation. The selection process will be continuous until a qualified candidate is found. Ideally, the successful candidate would start working at PIC no later than January 2019.

 

Contract characteristics

The recruiting center will be the Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE).  The place of work will be the headquarters of PIC at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The contract is funded by the European Commision through the project “European Science Cluster of Astronomy & Particle physics ESFRI research infrastructures - (ESCAPE)”, grant agreement No. 824064.  The contract will be for 1 year, including a 3 month trial period, renewable up to an additional year depending on mutual satisfaction and availability of funds.

 

Salary Range: between 25.000 and 30.000 € yearly gross, depending on experience. 

 

The contract includes the standard social benefits in Spain, which include public Health. Unemployment insurance and Pension Fund, paid for you by IFAE on top of the salary quoted above (with an associated cost of ~8,000-10,000€/year).

 

IFAE is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity in the workplace, and we welcome applications from all qualified candidates. Women are particularly encouraged to apply. 

 

PIC provides a flexible work environment, and promotes proactive goal-oriented approach in the workplace.

 

About PIC

PIC is a scientific-technological center located in the UAB University campus near Barcelona and it is maintained through a collaboration agreement between the research centers IFAE (http://www.ifae.es) and CIEMAT (http://www.ciemat.es).

 

PIC uses distributed high throughput computing technologies including clusters, Grid, Cloud and Big Data, to support the scientific mission of various international collaborations in the field of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology doing data-intensive research. 

 

Providing data processing capacity at the level of 8000 cpu cores, 10 Petabytes of disk and 25 Petabytes of tape, PIC is a world-wide recognized center for scientific data processing and High Throughput Computing. It is the main computing  center in Spain for the CERN LHC particle accelerator, a Science Data Center for the ESA Euclid satellite mission and the main data repository for the MAGIC and PAU astrophysics experiments.