26-124 Research Data Engineer/Statistical Programmer Part-time

Colorado State University • Fort Collins, CO

5d • Remote

About The Position

The Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) at Colorado State University seeks a part-time (70% FTE) Research Data Engineer or Statistical Programmer to support the Quick Response Survey (QRS) project, “Using Quick Response Surveys to Develop and Pilot Test Flood Risk Communication.” Funded by the Weather Program Office for two years, the project studies public perceptions and responses to hazardous weather through surveys. The position is remote and involves regular collaboration with QRS researchers and institutional partners. It reports directly to the SBES Data and Methods Advisor. The project period runs through April 2028, with a no-cost extension to be requested if necessary.

The existing QRS repository contains approximately 13,000 responses from 34 survey waves organized into three related hazard databases. The role will regularize these historical databases, process approximately 15 to 20 additional survey waves, and build a reproducible data-management system that can scale to future national implementation—potentially about 150 forecast offices conducting an average of four surveys each per year. The position does not supervise employees.

The successful candidate will build and maintain reproducible workflows for importing, cleaning, validating, harmonizing, documenting, and delivering survey data. Outputs will include analysis-ready Stata, R, and CSV files, with processing decisions and Stata files documented for project researchers to review and audit. The position requires compliance with applicable Institutional Review Board requirements and U.S. work authorization through the project period; CIRA will not sponsor a visa.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in data science, computer science, statistics, information science, social science, or a related field, plus three years of relevant professional experience; alternatively, a master’s degree in one of these fields or a related field.
• Experience managing and programming data in Stata, including reproducible .do files, merges, appends, macros, loops, labels, and data-validation procedures.
• Experience producing fully labeled, documented, and analysis-ready Stata files.
• Experience writing data-processing or scientific software in a language such as Python.
• Experience developing reproducible and documented data-processing workflows.
• Experience using version-control tools such as Git or GitHub.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States by the start date and throughout the two-year project; visa sponsorship is not available.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a remote research environment, evidenced by prior remote work experience.
• Strong technical writing, documentation, problem-solving, and communication skills, evidenced by an appropriate cover letter.
• Submit an application through the online portal, including a cover letter and resume/CV; the cover letter is required.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with Qualtrics survey structures, response exports, APIs, or survey metadata.
• Experience harmonizing multi-wave, longitudinal, repeated cross-sectional, or multi-source datasets.
• Experience working with confidential, restricted, or human-subjects research data.
• Familiarity with survey weights and sample-design variables.
• Experience using R and packages such as haven or the tidyverse.
• Experience producing consistent Stata, R, and CSV outputs from a common data-processing workflow.
• Experience using LLM-assisted programming tools for code development, schema comparison, testing, or documentation.
• Experience working in an academic research center, government agency, policy institute, or similar research setting.
• Experience in social science research.

Responsibilities

• Review and harmonize approximately 13,000 historical responses from 34 survey waves into three consistently structured and documented hazard databases.
• Develop and maintain a master variable crosswalk and standardize variable names, labels, response codes, missing-value conventions, and derived-variable procedures across survey waves.
• Design, implement, and maintain a reproducible pipeline using Stata, Python, and other appropriate tools to import, clean, validate, harmonize, and append survey data from Qualtrics and other approved sources.
• Develop the pipeline to process approximately 15 to 20 survey waves and scale to approximately 600 waves annually without substantial rewriting of the core processing system.
• Incorporate forecast-office-distributed surveys and purchased probability, quota, panel, or other vendor-provided samples while preserving recruitment source, survey wave, weights, quotas, and other available sample-design information.
• Establish procedures to identify, document, and manage changes to survey questions, response options, variable names, survey modules, and incoming data structures.
• Create automated quality-control checks and exception reports for unexpected variables, coding changes, duplicate records, missing metadata, invalid values, and other data inconsistencies.
• Produce fully documented, analysis-ready data files in Stata, R, and CSV formats, ensuring Stata files and processing decisions are readable and auditable by project researchers.
• Maintain processing code, variable crosswalks, codebooks, data dictionaries, change histories, and standard operating procedures in an approved version-control environment.
• Follow applicable Institutional Review Board requirements.

Benefits

• The posting describes a robust benefits package, a collaborative atmosphere, and a focus on work-life balance, and directs applicants to CSU’s detailed benefits information. Specific benefit offerings are not itemized.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Part-time
• Career Level: Mid Level