Research Software Engineer

University of Wisconsin Madison•Madison, WI

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

The cyberinfrastructure team at the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is seeking an engineer to join our software and operations team. WIPAC is a scientific center within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. WIPAC research focuses on exploring the high energy universe, including managing the operations of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. Our team manages significant resources (15+ PB, thousands of CPUs and GPUs) distributed around the world, which require sophisticated infrastructure orchestration. This position will design and maintain the software behind the deployment of scientific workloads and supporting infrastructure across our diverse computing and storage resources. As part of the cyberinfrastructure team, the hired individual will develop, deploy, and maintain scientific-supporting applications, including specifications, testing, CI/CD, documentation, and training materials, review pull requests for applications and libraries within the team, and communicate with users on projects that affect them. In addition to the team at WIPAC, you will work with a diverse international community of researchers in a variety of scientific disciplines to ensure that our computing systems meet the current and future needs of our researchers, as well as adapting to incorporate new technology and software over time. We have faculty, students, and staff from around the globe, and routinely work with international colleagues. Opportunities for professional development, conferences, and additional training and education are provided. This position will work in our office in Madison, WI. Flexible schedules and hybrid work options are available. Job level (either Software Engineer/Developer II or Software Engineer/Developer III) and salary are NEGOTIABLE for more experienced candidates.

Requirements

Programming experience in Python

Nice To Haves

Programming experience in Rust
Batch computing systems, such as high-throughput or high-performance computing
Containerized deployment of software, such as Kubernetes
Message Queues or other streaming-based platforms
Observability for distributed systems, including monitoring, logging, or tracing
Continuous integration and deployment
AI-Agent-based workflows
2+ years in a similar role is a plus
Any related experience will be positively considered

Responsibilities

Develop, deploy, and maintain scientific-supporting applications, including specifications, testing, CI/CD, documentation, and training materials
Review pull requests for applications and libraries within the team
Communicate with users on projects that affect them
Reviews application design specifications, codes new applications, and makes enhancements to existing applications
Performs integration, migration, configuration, maintenance, and security of applications and services
Contributes to the development of data structure and systems performance strategies
Trains and provides technical guidance to lower level staff
Designs and implements test plans, and prepares systems test data
Prepares program documentation and training requirements
Develops, prepares, or modifies technical specifications for complex projects, system integrations, and upgrades
Conducts systems analysis, reviews and interprets system requirements, and develops detailed system design specifications for system integration and upgrades
Reviews application modules for quality assurance and checks compliance with application architecture standards
Conducts analysis for the evaluation and selection of vendor software solutions and packages
Leads sub-functional team for application development or enhancement