Software Engineer

College of Social Sciences and International Studies

This part time position is initially available as a Temporary assignment for 20 weeks, starting June 2022. This role offers the opportunity for hybrid working – some time on campus and some from home.

Summary of the role

The role of Software Engineer will be to support the project OPTED, which is a design study that will lay the foundation for an infrastructure that will serve a major hub for political text analysis in Europe. The EU-funded H2020 project involves 17 research institutions, organized into 10 work packages, which collaboratively will work on designing the building blocks of the infrastructure.

The University of Exeter is the leading institution in OPTED’s work package 9. The work carried out for package 9 is focused on the curation and dissemination of text analysis resources, identified or produced by other work packages. The stages of work include building a conceptual model of the tools and resources we are curating, building a web platform (searchable library) for the tools and resources, and developing a pipeline for the ongoing maintenance of this platform.

We have produced a taxonomy covering all the resources which should be made available on the prototype platform and are looking for a software engineer that could develop the back end of the prototype. The resources have been coded on a series of common metadata that serves to link them together and are stored in various spreadsheets.

The main task will be to develop a prototype platform that allows the users to search and access these resources, according to a set of search criteria. For this stage of the project, we are aiming for something similar to this (https://bio.tools/ ) tool. The prototype then should also recommend resources to the user building on the available metadata and the similarity with the searched resource.

Qualifications and skills

Master’s degree or equivalent practical experience.

Experience with software development in one or more programming languages, particularly the development of backend functionalities.

Some experience with web design for the frontend functionalities is desirable.

To apply please send Cover letter and CV to Michele Scotto Di Vettimo - [email protected]

The University of Exeter

We are a member of the prestigious Russell Group of research-intensive universities and in the top 150 universities in the world (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022 and QS World University Ranking 2022). We combine world-class teaching with world-class research, achieving a Gold rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework Award 2017.

Our research income in recent years means we’re the fastest growing UK Research University with some of the world’s most influential scientists, and we seek to answer some of the most fundamental issues facing humankind today through this. 98% of our research is of international quality (2014 Research Excellence Framework). We encourage proactive engagement with industry, business and community partners to enhance the impact of research and education and improve the employability of our students. Read about our world leading research – Green Futures and how we are transforming education for a changing world. We are located in a beautiful part of the country and Exeter (a fast growing tech hub) is one of only a few UK cities to have been designated as a UNESCO Creative City

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Commitment

With over 27,000 students and 6,400 staff from 180 different countries we offer a diverse and engaging environment where our diversity is celebrated and valued as a major strength. We are committed to creating an inclusive culture where all members of our community are supported to thrive; where diverse voices are heard through our engagement with evidence-based charter frameworks for gender (Athena SWAN), race equality (Race Equality Charter Mark), LGBTQ+ inclusion (Stonewall Diversity Champion) and as a Disability Confident employer. Whilst all applicants will be judged on merit alone, we particularly welcome applications from groups currently underrepresented within our working community. Reasonable adjustments are available for interviews and workplaces.