Senior Research Engineer, Modeling Technology – Global Health

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation•Seattle, WA

2d•$190,100 - $324,100

About The Position

The Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM) at the Gates Foundation seeks a Senior Research Engineer, Modeling Technology, to partner with researchers and build technical solutions that support disease modeling and model-informed policymaking. The role is part of the Model Frameworks team and reports to the Senior Manager, Model Frameworks. It supports rigorous, reproducible modeling and strengthens model-driven decision-making in low-resource settings, helping researchers address complex questions and focus on science rather than technical hurdles. The position involves translating open-ended scientific challenges into practical technical solutions, building reusable modeling capabilities, and working across agent-based, compartmental, and statistical modeling approaches. It also explores emerging technologies, particularly AI, and supports their responsible and effective use. The engineer independently delivers work across concurrent projects, collaborates with technical and scientific partners, and contributes technical direction and design review to the team.

Requirements

Typically 5–8 years of professional software engineering experience in scientific programming such as Python or R, ideally in research software, computational modeling, and cloud-based data access and processing, or equivalent impact.
Hands-on experience building with generative AI, including agent design, tool use, and context management, in production or research-grade environments.
Working grasp of how AI system quality is measured and improved.
Knowledge of and hands-on experience with computational modeling, such as agent-based modeling, compartmental models, or statistical/machine-learning approaches.
Experience collaborating closely with researchers, applied scientists, or domain experts in global health or public health settings.
Demonstrated ability to deliver well-tested, maintainable code using modern engineering practices.
Ability to work independently on multi-week tasks, communicate tradeoffs clearly to technical and research audiences, and adapt priorities based on manager and team feedback.
Unrestricted work authorization in the country where the position is located; the Foundation does not provide immigration-related sponsorship or other immigration support for this role.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with open-source software development practices, including project contributions, workflows, documentation standards, and community engagement.
Exposure to cloud-based data and compute platforms used for large-scale analysis or simulation workloads.
Hands-on experience with production AI system design, such as orchestration across long-running tasks, evaluation harnesses, and guardrails.
Background in epidemiology, computational biology, infectious disease modeling, or scientific computing.
Proven ability to design adaptable, low-barrier software and data solutions for resource-constrained environments.

Responsibilities

Partner with researchers to understand complex scientific challenges and break them into actionable components.
Translate research needs into tailored technical solutions using rigorous mathematical and computational methods, refining them through feedback.
Build and maintain trusted relationships across IDM, the Foundation, and research partners; communicate technical concepts to technical and scientific audiences.
Design proven solutions as reusable capabilities that adapt across research contexts and support IDM research.
Work across computational modeling paradigms, including agent-based, compartmental, and statistical approaches.
Prototype and evaluate emerging technologies, particularly AI, and integrate promising approaches into IDM’s work.
Help shape IDM’s responsible and effective application of AI.
Produce well-designed, well-tested, maintainable code using modern engineering practices and AI development tools.
Explore, validate, and communicate emerging engineering practices to the team.
Plan and execute work across concurrent projects, coordinate with teammates, communicate changes to timelines or priorities, and escalate risks with proposed solutions.
Model collaborative engineering practices and team culture, and provide technical direction, design reviews, and problem escalation support.