Research Software Engineer

Convergent Research

1d • $120,000 - $180,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

[C]Worthy is a Focused Research Organization
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00018-5] operating in partnership
with Convergent Research [https://www.convergentresearch.org/]. We develop
science-backed tools for Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) by
adapting advanced oceanographic models to quantify carbon removal and assess
ecosystem impacts with scientific credibility. These tools are delivered through
our open-source software platform, C-Star, which is designed to ensure
ease-of-use, standardization, auditability, and transparency—foundations for
building high-integrity CDR markets. We collaborate with early commercial actors
in the carbon removal market to support research, provide robust MRV solutions,
and shape effective standards. We are also maintaining and building strong
connections within the research community to ensure that our tools evolve
alongside the best available science and technology. 

Position Description

We are seeking an experienced scientific software engineer to contribute to
C-Star, our open-source toolkit for high‑fidelity physical–biogeochemical models
that are robust, user-friendly, reproducible, and auditable. C-Star encompasses
a wide range of scientific and engineering tools that aim to streamline the
entire process of running a large ocean model: from initial data gathering and
transformations, to distributed, automated model execution, to aggregation and
extraction of key results. This provides an opportunity to utilize a broad set
of technical skills including workflow management, HPC paradigms (e.g. MPI),
complex data transformations (e.g. 3D regridding), scaled data engineering,
schema design, cloud/HPC hybrid environments, DevOps, and more. The successful
candidate will have a strong foundation in Python software development, with one
or more supporting skill sets, and the ability to grow into new technical areas
as needed. We are open to considering mid-level to senior candidates based on
experience and role fit.

The primary impact of this position is the software that you will help create.
While opportunities to author or co-author scientific publications may present
themselves, they are not a core focus of this position.

This is a hybrid position with an expectation of three in-office days per week
in Boulder, CO.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctorate degree, or equivalent work experience in a technical field (e.g., oceanography, atmospheric science, physical science, computer science)
• Excellent problem-solving and critical-thinking skills; ability to understand both scientific and software systems, and tackle abstract problems in the overlap between them
• 3+ years of experience writing clean, maintainable, object-oriented software in Python
• Experience working with multi-dimensional scientific datasets in Python (e.g., netcdf/zarr formats and Pangeo libraries, particularly xarray, numpy, and scipy)
• Experience working in interdisciplinary teams and translating scientific requirements into software specifications

Nice To Haves

• Exposure or experience building and running gridded numerical models (especially ocean models)
• Experience with HPC/supercomputer environments (SLURM, MPI, performant file systems)
• Experience with a workflow management package such as Prefect or Airflow
• Scientific background in physical or biogeochemical oceanography
• Exposure to agile/scrum methodologies; demonstrated ability to focus on objectives and iterate towards solutions
• Expertise in TB/PB-scale data engineering 
• Ability to read and debug FORTRAN
• Experience with containerization frameworks such as Apptainer/Singularity or Podman/Docker
• Knowledge of data versioning, logging, and audit trails
• Experience with performant numerical Python techniques and libraries, such as Dask, Numba, and asyncio
• Experience working with cloud-based storage and compute systems, ideally for large, multi-node computations

Responsibilities

• Design, build, & maintain C-Star software components alongside a multidisciplinary team.
• Quickly generate working software prototypes to address emerging needs, and later harden those prototypes into production-grade software.
• Independently execute on medium-sized projects, keeping a focus on high-level goals while maintaining flexibility to diagnose and solve problems as they arise.
• Assist fellow developers via code reviews, design discussions, and testing.
• Support internal and external users via issue review, troubleshooting, tutorials, requirement-gathering, and documentation.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 51-100 employees