Met Office Hiring for Foundation Scientific Software Engineers Job at Exeter, England Full Time

154704

£24,146 – £26,641

Total potential reward £34,693 per annum

Temporary

2 Years

Science

Full-time

5

Exeter

Who we are

The Met Office vision is to be recognised as a global leader in weather and climate science and services in our changing world. Our work benefits society in many ways, from providing climate change projections which are used by international policy makers and will shape the future for decades to come, through weather forecasts which the general public use to make daily decisions, to forecasts of wildfires, volcanic ash, and other national and international emergencies. Our scientific software systems provide the core underpinning capability necessary for us to provide accurate forecasts and predictions to ensure people stay safe and thrive.

If you are looking for a new challenge combining cutting edge science with software engineering on some of the UK’s largest supercomputers, consider becoming a scientific software engineer. Scientific software engineers work across a wide variety of scientific disciplines, developing and maintaining critical national infrastructure working in collaboration with scientists, technologists, forecasters, engineers, and business experts.

Now is an exciting time to be a scientific software engineer. The Met Office has recently signed a multimillion-pound agreement for the provision of a new supercomputer, which is expected to be twice as powerful as any other in the UK and work is already underway preparing for this. At the same time, our modelling systems are being rewritten or upgraded to take advantage of future novel technologies in the next generation of supercomputers.

The Met Office has a strong commitment towards career development, providing opportunities to try something new as well as to develop existing skills. This is a fantastic opportunity to join a world-class organisation developing scientific software that underpins the Met Office’s work to ensure protection, prosperity, and well-being for people in the UK and around the world.

Our services are delivered through exceptional scientific, technological and operational expertise. We have a team of excellent people, working to deliver extraordinary impact, making us one of the most trusted forecasters in the world.

Our values – it’s who we are:

• We’re a force for good
• We’re experts by nature
• We live and breathe it
• We’re better together
• We keep evolving

As our Foundation Scientific Software Engineers , the key duties are:

Contribute to the design, development, maintenance, and optimisation of the core underpinning systems of the Met Office Weather and Climate observation and modelling capability, enhancing technical capability in support of science advances and/or improving performance on available IT infrastructure.

Liaise with system users and developers in order to understand their scientific and software requirements, to provide technical guidance and advice; with code developments and/or to ensure developments will be suitable for implementation.

Share knowledge and expertise with colleagues in order to enhance both team and inter team effectiveness, including acting as a key interface with science/research colleagues.

Contribute to the Quality Assurance of our scientific modelling capability; through reviewing and testing code changes, ensuring and enabling software development practices are followed, including software security.

There are vacancies in a number of teams across the Met Office Science directorate; applicants will be considered for all of them. The teams include:

Data Workflows – responsible for ensuring our weather and climate workflows make good use of our hardware

Atmospheric Dispersion and Air Quality – responsible for developing the NAME dispersion model and the systems that support the Met Office’s operational response to atmospheric contamination incidents

Testbeds – responsible for developing and maintaining software used in the visualisation of the Met Office’s models and observations for testbed and evaluation activities

Verification, Impacts and Post-Processing – post-processing short to medium range weather data to make useful and usable probabilistic weather forecasts for outside customers like the website and app

Seasonal Forecasting – responsible for developing forecasts and products for a month to three months ahead

Responsibilities

Essential Qualifications, Skills & Abilities

1. Software development: An ability to learn and apply scientific software tools and/or programming languages.

2. Software quality: A willingness to learn and apply good software engineering discipline leading to improved software quality and science outputs.

3. Demonstrable interest in solving software coding problems in scientific context.

4. Evidence of effective?communication (for example, written, verbal & listening).

5. Team and customer support: Evidence of team working skills and an understanding of customer support

6. Enthusiasm to undertake training and development in order to enhance your specialist skills and experience.

Desirable Qualifications, Skills & Abilities

We encourage you to apply if you believe you meet our essential criteria, but your application will be even stronger if you have:

1. Degree and or postgraduate qualifications in a computational, mathematical, or physical science or related discipline and/or equivalent experience.

2. Ability to work with and understand scientific problems and concepts and convert these into well written code.

3. Experience of programming in at least one programming language, for example Python, C, C++, Fortran, etc

The Met Office is recruiting for Foundation Scientific Software Engineers. This role will nominally be based in Exeter but we will consider applicants wishing to work elsewhere within the UK’.

Whilst this secondment/temporary post is for 2 years, there is the potential for it to develop into a permanent position.

We operate hybrid working. That means 40% of your time will be in office to work collaboratively with colleagues, and 60% deciding with your manager what works best for you. If that means working from home we will support you to do so; and if you work better together with colleagues then you can choose to work in our extraordinary Exeter office for up to 100% of the time. If you are interested in being based at a different Met Office location, or if you would like to enquire about part time hours including compressed please get in touch with us.

As our Foundation Scientific Software Engineers , the starting salary will be £24146.00 with opportunities to progress to £26641.00 over time. New joiners to the Met Office will start on the salary band minima.

Our total reward package is potentially worth up to £34,693 per annum, which includes basic salary, potential corporate bonus, employer pension contributions.

This role attracts a market forces supplement of £3,375 per annum paid quarterly, pro-rated from the date of taking up the appointment to 31 March 2022 – this scheme is currently under review.

We also offer:

• Outstanding Civil Service Pension
• Flexible hours and homeworking
• Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) rising to 32.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) after 5 years
• Option to buy or sell up to 5 days per year of annual leave
• Cycle to work scheme for the purchase of a bicycle and equipment for healthy, low carbon travel
• Access to discounted shopping on a range of retail, leisure and lifestyle categories