Software Engineer

University of Washington•Seattle, WA

3d•$87,624 - $98,400•Onsite

About The Position

Columbia Basin Research has an outstanding opportunity for a Software Engineer to join their team. The Software Engineer will work with a small team of statisticians at Columbia Basin Research (CBR; www.cbr.washington.edu). CBR is a research center within the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, College of the Environment, University of Washington. CBR conducts basic and applied research on the impacts of regulated river operations on the freshwater and marine survival of salmon in a changing environment. As part of its mission, CBR develops desktop and web-based applications (https://www.cbr.washington.edu/analysis) to perform statistical analyses relevant to fish, dam, water, and natural resource management. The Software Engineer will play a lead role in the development and maintenance of desktop applications to implement statistical analysis for effective monitoring and research related to salmon survival and migration in tributaries, past dams, and in the marine environment. These analysis tools are used by researchers and managers throughout the Columbia River Basin and California’s Central Delta to design field studies of salmon and steelhead migration and analyze the resulting tagging data. The Software Engineer will also be instrumental in redeveloping, implementing, and maintaining a web-based application to forecast salmon run-timing from a long time series of past migration data combined with data from the current migration season (“in-season forecasts”). These forecasts are used by managers of hydroelectric projects to schedule their dam operations throughout the year to protect endangered salmon and steelhead, while also providing visualizations of salmon populations’ response to hatchery practices and climate change. This position offers great opportunities for professional and personal growth in a stimulating research environment on applied ecology and endangered salmon and steelhead.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Data Science, or related field and three years of relevant experience in software development.
Equivalent education and/or experience may substitute for minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements.
Programming experience in C# or C/C++
Working knowledge of relational databases using SQL
Working knowledge of numerical optimization
Working familiarity with version control using Git
Working familiarity with Python and R
Experience with web design and Linux
Demonstrated ability to work in a collaborative setting with an interdisciplinary research team
Strong written and oral communication skills
Demonstrated problem-solving skills
Demonstrated ability to exercise logical judgment and work independently
Demonstrated ability to prioritize work to complete deliverables in a timely manner
Demonstrated ability to learn new software frameworks, understand complex quantitative methods quickly, and innovate independently and collaboratively
Demonstrated ability to establish and maintain positive, ethical, and professional interpersonal relationships

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Data Science, or related field and at least three years’ experience in software development or equivalent combination of education/experience
Academic training in Mathematical Statistics or Data Analysis
Two years’ experience in Qt, XAML, Java, and Perl
Two years’ experience programming machine learning, neural networks, or other AI for time series forecasting
At least three years of experience programming with a collaborative team
Outstanding interpersonal skills, including team ethics and relationship-building, and critical thinking skills
Interest in biological/ecological subjects and the desire to develop user-friendly software to investigate environmental issues
Knowledge of Pacific Salmon and Steelhead ecology

Responsibilities

developing and maintaining desktop applications to implement statistical analyses, including back-end, user interface, and data storage
redeveloping, implementing, and maintaining a web-based application of in-season forecasts of salmon runs
working with internal databases
interfacing with statisticians to develop software to analyze complex environmental data in a user-friendly computing environment
Collaborate with statisticians in the design, development, debugging, documentation, and maintenance of a suite of statistical applications for design and analysis of salmonid survival studies, including the Parameter Estimation programs on the Tools webpage.
Design, develop, implement, and document user-friendly interfaces for the statistical applications, programs, and tools.
Maintain best practices programming with source control (Git), issues tracking (Git), unit testing, test plans, quality assurance applications (C#, R statistical package), and release testing.
Backup all statistical tools and programs.
Implement and maintain web-based application of in-season forecasts of salmon runs on the CBR Predictions webpage.
Collaborate with statisticians to redevelop in-season forecasts to use AI approaches such as machine learning or neural networks; implement and test online against existing forecasts.
Work with internal relational databases using SQL.
Analyze tagging data using a combination of Python, SQL, and R.
Provide support to the public and to the fisheries community in the Pacific Northwest, which includes members of local, state, and federal government agencies, First Nations and Tribes, environmental organizations, and consulting organizations.
Provide instruction on the use of our programs in training sessions to fisheries community.
Keep up to date on advancements in scientific computing.
Learn to implement new programming approaches and software to ensure continued maintenance and improvement of existing analytical tools and development of new tools.