CANDIDATE BRIEF
Research Software Engineer in Cloud Infrastructure Solutions, Faculty of Engineering
Salary: Grade 7 (£32,548 – £38,833 p.a.)
Reference: ENGCP1075
Closing date: 06 September 2018
Fixed-term until 31 December 2020 We will consider flexible working arrangements
Research Software Engineer in Cloud Infrastructure Solutions School of Computing
Are you a cloud solutions architect looking for a new challenge in a research- intensive environment? Are you an expert in storage technologies with a passion for data strategy, data protection and information security? Do you have significant experience implementing cloud-based research solutions for big data analysis and biomedical imaging analytics pipelines? Do you have a passion for large heterogeneous data systems and working across the full stack? Are you ready to think out-of-the-box, innovate and find solutions to challenging distributed storage systems problems?
The Centre for Computational Imaging and Simulation Technologies in Biomedicine (CISTIB), within the Schools of Computing and Medicine, involves various academics and their research groups. CISTIB focuses on algorithmic and applied research in the areas of computational imaging, and image-based computational physiology modelling and simulation. CISTIB contributes in different areas of medical image computing and image-based biomechanical and computational physiology modelling. CISTIB works in close cooperation with clinicians from various research centres from the University of Leeds and the academic hospitals of the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust Foundation, the largest NHS Trust of the UK.
Clinical areas where CISTIB members have contributed to, and made substantive innovations in the field, are focused around the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and neural systems, where they have developed diagnostic and prognostic quantitative image-based biomarkers and methods and systems for interventional planning and guidance. The centre hosts academic members from the University of Leeds and Research Fellows, Research Associates, PhD Students and Scientific Software Developers forming a cross-disciplinary team committed to clinical translation of their innovations.
You will be part of the Scientific Software Development (SSD) team that is the responsible for the development and maintenance of the MULTI-X Platform, the GIMIAS platform, and prototypes developed for specific domains based on these platforms, and prototypes we develop as part of our involvement in local and international projects. SSD activities include but are not limited to: support, dissemination, training and software development. As a senior member of the team, you will contribute at the technical and management level to accomplish the different challenges and project objectives and will contribute to the planning of joint research projects led by the Principal Investigator.
What does the role entail?
As a Research Software Engineer your main duties will include: Taking primary responsibility for the deployment, administration, monitoring, and documentation of the systems integrating the MULTI-X Platform; Lead responsibility for the integrity, availability and IT security of the heterogeneous CISTIB distributed data components and storage systems; Deploying, maintaining, improving and monitoring many systems, datasets and prototypes developed by CISTIB. Generating and pursuing independent and original ideas to enhance the centre computational infrastructure; Providing analysis, design and direction regarding storage performance, capacity management and data integration into analysis workflows, for cloud- based and traditional storage environments; Supporting the scientific software development services, carrying out diverse work relating to image processing, advanced data querying, data visualisation, large-scale data handling and container orchestration; Supporting the execution of computational and data-intensive analysis pipelines, facilitating the compilation, visualisation and analysis of the results; Proactively liaising day-to-day with CISTIB members and external users to receive feedback on the usability and performance of the platform and assessing their storage needs; Safeguarding system components by identifying and solving potential and actual security threats, ensuring the compliance with IT standards and privacy regulations; Streamlining and automating backup processes, improving recoverability, and reducing the cost per gigabyte to protect critical production data; Performing daily system monitoring, verifying the correctness of all hardware, server resources, systems and key processes, reviewing system and application logs, and verifying completion of scheduled jobs; Maintaining code repositories and documentation to improve the efficiency with which new researchers learn to develop scientific applications and datasets;
Collaborating in larger and/or longer-term software development projects relating to CISTIB research activities. Participating as a formal collaborator in projects that make use of CISTIB scientific software, datasets and platforms; Liaising closely with academics and researchers who are leaders in computational imaging, modelling, algorithms and methods, and liaising with departmental colleagues to ensure the successful operation of the SSD services, sharing knowledge and expertise; Delivering expert technical advisory and highly specialist consultative services relating to the research infrastructure and storage technologies, to technical and non-technical audiences. Responding to incoming support requests relating to using the SSD services and CISTIB Platforms; Developing and maintaining training material to support internal users and projects and platforms users, and for dissemination; Organising events to demonstrate the software to academics, researchers, and other third parties. Delivering training courses and webinars as required; Engaging and networking with the peer community, participating and collaborating with relevant specialist networks, contributing ideas, experience and thinking to disparate working groups across CISTIB; Undertaking continuing professional development, seeking to expand and maintain up-to-date knowledge of key technologies, methods and approaches related to cloud infrastructures, data engineering and relevant research areas; Creating periodic reports relating to the delivery and use of SSD services.
These duties provide a framework for the role and should not be regarded as a definitive list. Other reasonable duties may be required consistent with the grade of the post.
What will you bring to the role?
As a Research Software Engineer you will have: Demonstrated success in delivering complex development projects, integrating heterogeneous distributed data repositories, in one of these areas: (i) Computational engineering, (ii) Biomedical engineering, (iii) Mathematics or statistics, (iv) Scientific visualisation, (v) Computational Imaging; Strong expertise and experience in data management, large-scale data analysis, federated data sharing (iRODS), databases standards and query languages (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, Oracle, NoSQL or MongoDB); Professional experience deploying medical imaging storage systems (XnaT, PACS) and data collection systems (RedCap, OpenClinica, OpenEMR); Excellent multi-platform system administration skills: Windows/Linux systems deployed on cloud or virtualised environments (AWS, OpenStack, VMware, ESX), using containers technologies (Docker, Kubernetes, Singularity) and leveraging Configuration Management tools (Chef, Puppet, Ansible); Experience deploying semantic solutions for data harmonisation or data transformation (ETL tools, Ontologies, Vocabularies, RDF, OWL, RDBMS); Ability to support many file and network storage protocols including FC, NFS, iSCSI, CIFS, SMB, FTP, object storage technologies, and hands-on experience on RAID, clustering, server and network load balancing; Professional experience with server-side languages (PHP, Python, JavaScript, Net), related frameworks (CodeIgniter, Django, SharePoint), web servers and services (Apache, Nginx, Tomcat, IIS), and API and Restful interfaces; Experience with front-end development frameworks (Bootstrap or Foundation); JavaScript frameworks (Angular JS or VUE.JS) and web languages (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, SASS/LESS, XML, JSON, JQuery and Ajax); Professional experience integrating CI/CD systems (Jenkins-Hudson, Travis CI, CDash), working on SCRUM process and following Agile methodology; Substantial knowledge in code versioning SVN, GIT, GitHub and Bitbucket and standard build automation utilities: Conda, CMake, ANT, GCC; Experience deploying CMS systems to publish informative websites, and graphic design skills to generate image assets, training material, and videos; Effective communication skills, with the ability to understand user requirements and communicate technical information to non-technical partners, and to disseminate the research work and outcomes to both the scientific community and the wider society; Ability to actively engage with clinical collaborators to better understand the clinical problems which motivate the research and to ensure that the storage solutions developed are operationally viable; Ability to work effectively as part of a multidisciplinary team and to collaborate with others to achieve common objectives, sharing experience and ideas, and working together to make the most of technology and innovation breakthroughs.
You may also have: A PhD or equivalent experience in a relevant area of computer science or electrical engineering.
How to apply
You can apply for this role online; more guidance can be found on our How to Apply information page. Applications should be submitted by 23.59 (UK time) on the advertised closing date.
Contact information
To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact:
Professor Alex Frangi, Diamond Jubilee Chair of Computational Medicine Tel: +44 (0)113 343 5430 Email: [email protected]
Additional information
Faculty and School Information Further information is available on the research and teaching activities of the Faculty of Engineering and the School of Computing.
A diverse workforce The Faculty of Engineering is proud to have been awarded the Athena Swan Silver Award from the Equality Challenge Unit, the national body that promotes equality in the higher education sector. Our equality and inclusion webpage provides more information.
Working at Leeds Find out more about the benefits of working at the University and what it is like to live and work in the Leeds area on our Working at Leeds information page.
Candidates with disabilities Information for candidates with disabilities, impairments or health conditions, including requesting alternative formats, can be found on our Accessibility information page or by getting in touch with us at [email protected].
Criminal record information
Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
A criminal record check is not required for this position. However, all applicants will be required to declare if they have any ‘unspent’ criminal offences, including those pending.
Any offer of appointment will be in accordance with our Criminal Records policy. You can find out more about required checks and declarations in our Criminal Records information page.