Research Software Engineer (EPSRC DIVERSE CDT)

Fixed Term Contract until 30th September 2033 - 18.25 hours per week / 0.5 FTE

We are seeking a part-time Research Software Engineer (RSE) to lead the design and implementation of an open software and data infrastructure to support the applied research and training of 60 PhD students over the next 8 years. The RSE will be a core member of the team developing the new EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Diversity in Data Visualisation (DIVERSE CDT, https://diverse-cdt.ac.uk/ ). The CDT is co-hosted by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM) at University of Warwick and City St George’s, University of London. DIVERSE CDT is a major £10m investment and aims to train the next generation of critical, multidisciplinary leaders at the forefront of data visualisation research through training, placements, community activities that enable and inform the PhD students’ research. More than 40 industrial and academic partner organisations are involved with the CDT. The RSE will then play a pivotal role in bringing the students, academics and partners together through the infrastructure for open research software and data. This post offers a unique opportunity to be part of the innovative DIVERSE CDT programme. The role enables you to build on your expertise in web-based development, data and database technologies & open science practices to develop an infrastructure that enables data visualisation research that is conducted and reported through computational notebooks (e.g. using Javascript and Observable Notebooks). The post holder will work with academics, external partners and CDT students to setup and manage this infrastructure, providing opportunities to collaborate in aspects of the research it enables, and explore the practices and tools involved within interdisciplinary Research Software Engineering. We expect this to involve developing and the maintenance of an efficient and secure data infrastructure that enables the development of web-based visualisations with and through literate computing technologies such as Observable Notebooks. The post holder will also support the PhD students in conducting their research through this infrastructure and provide them guidance and specialised training through targeted sessions on, for instance, good research software engineering practice, open practices within software development. The diversity of PhD student backgrounds provides a rich and exciting range of opportunities to further develop a career in Research Software Engineering, and Open Research Software and Data. The breadth of research topics and approaches will provide numerous opportunities to explore and solve real-world challenges around data management, data privacy and open science practices, including through interactions with the non-academic stakeholders.

About You

Who are we looking for? We are looking for an enthusiastic RSE who is competent in developing technical data and data visualisation infrastructure to support doctoral research in data visualisation and related data-intensive research. The ideal candidate should be comfortable working with web-based programming languages, particularly JavaScript, to develop a web-based interface for the digital notebooks and be competent in setting up an efficient and secure data infrastructure to serve the data related needs of the students and our non-academic stakeholders. We encourage applicants who have worked as an RSE previously, as well as those who may have developed equivalent experience through PhD or postdoctoral research, or through alternative routes such as working in industry. Whilst direct experience in designing and developing data visualisations is not essential, experience in web-based data visualisation technologies such as D3 or Observable would be desirable. This part-time post will be suitable for flexible working routines. DIVERSE CDT has a mission to deliver cross-site (University of Warwick and City St George’s), hybrid training (in person and online) and cohort building activities, and we are open to discussing modes of working that are suited to the candidate and the project. To streamline our hiring processes, we can only accept applications submitted via our official careers webpage, warwick-careers.tal.net.