Research Software Engineer III/IV

Research Software Engineer III/IV

UF Information Technology (UFIT) is seeking multiple professional-level Research Software Engineers to join Research Computing, a unit within UFIT. The applicants are expected to work at locations across the campus to work closely with faculty and their research teams on software engineering in computational, data processing, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects in research and education. Applicants will be considered at the level for which they qualify. 

Employment with UFIT provides an excellent opportunity to work with other employees dedicated and focused on understanding and interpreting the technological needs of the University of Florida’s innovative and inspirational community. The positions are in Gainesville, FL with flexible work arrangements possible. These are not remote positions.

UF has been operating HiPerGator, for close to a decade. It is the fastest supercomputer owned and operated by a university in the USA. HiPerGator has become a critical service for UF because of the growth of the community of researchers, faculty, students, and collaborators that UFRC serves not only in size but also in the breadth of research domains. The workloads running on HiPerGator cover a wide range of research disciplines, from physical science and engineering to medicine and drug discovery, as well as arts and humanity.  The demand for HiPerGator’s computing power to carry out research in foundational and use-inspired AI has also dramatically increased with UF’s AI Initiative and the recent success of generative AI such as ChatGPT in all aspects of human activity.

The University of Florida is seeking people who are looking for an exciting career in supporting the research by world-class faculty and their students and collaborators in their quest to solve the most challenging problems facing the world today. The people in these positions are part of a collaborative team that values diverse and innovative ideas and viewpoints, and they will be expected to work closely in faculty-led teams in software engineering projects. The positions will involve constant learning and professional development. If you think this environment is a match for you or an exciting challenge, you are encouraged to use the cover letter to explain why you are a good fit.

Some key responsibilities of this position are:

• Learn by independent study, reading textbooks and research papers, and online training materials about problem domains in which work is needed.
• Design, program, document, debug, test, and maintain software for specific projects in diverse scientific and scholarly domains.
• Follow best practices for software engineering, including cybersecurity.
• Often software to be developed will be open-source, new, or a contribution to an existing tool, library, or framework.
• Act as consultant and mentor on software engineering principles for the project team you are part of for a given project.
• Contribute to papers and documentation to be produced as deliverables of the assigned project.
• Optimize code for performance and maintainability.
• Keep up to date on new developments in software engineering techniques and tools that could improve research outcomes.

Professional development opportunities:

• Learning the underlying science for the software you are developing with the project team.
• Access a community of professionals who are committed to operating excellent research computing support.
• Take training through various options ranging from workshops and online training certificates to semester-long courses and degrees.

UF Information Technology is comprised of eight departments reporting to the Vice President and Chief Information Officer: Academic Technology; Applications, Development, and Integrations; Business Center; Customer Experience and Resource Planning; Data Platform and Analytics; Information Security Office; Infrastructure and Communication Technology; and Research Computing. With established governance advisory committees and a set of well-defined, transparent processes aiding decision-making, UFIT strives to provide exceptional IT services in support of UF’s mission. For more information about UFIT and its goals and governance, visit  http://www.it.ufl.edu/vp-cio-office/strategic-plan/ .

Learn more about UFIT at https://it.ufl.edu/ and @GoGatorsUFIT.

UF is one of the nation’s top-5 universities and a dynamic and rewarding place to work. The University seeks to recruit and retain a diverse workforce as a reflection of its commitment to serving a diverse global community.  UF is in Gainesville, one of Florida’s most livable cities. Known for its natural attractions (wetlands, forests, springs, wildlife) and cultural offerings (music, theater, visual arts, and historic districts), the area also is gaining a reputation as a thriving hub for high-tech start-ups, as well as invention and research collaborations. We are excited about what’s happening here and know you will want to be a part of it.

Benefits

Full-time TEAMS employees will accrue vacation leave at a rate of 6.769 hours biweekly/22 days annually and sick leave at a rate of 4 hours biweekly/13 days annually. In addition, employees are eligible for ten paid holidays each year.

Vacation-accruing TEAMS employees are eligible for four personal leave days/32 hours per year, assuming full-time status, and are intended to give the flexibility to enable units to close from December 26 to 31 when possible, determined on a unit-by-unit basis.

In addition to paid time off, the University of Florida offers a very competitive benefits package.

Achieving a top-5 public university ranking means we make it a priority to employ and work with people with diverse experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives to discover new ways to leverage technology for teaching, learning, research, and the business needs of a comprehensive land-grant institution.

Every Gator has a part to play, and we invite you to join us as we build a community founded on belonging, inclusion, and the freedom to thrive.

RSE III: $90,000-$110,000; commensurate based on education and experience. 

RES IV: $110,000-$130,000; commensurate based on education and experience. 

RSE Level III: A Bachelor’s Degree in computer or physical science, statistics, bioinformatics, analytics, or similar field and five years of experience; Master’s Degree in computer or physical science, statistics, bioinformatics, analytics, or similar field and three years of experience; Doctoral Degree in computer or physical science, statistics, bioinformatics, analytics, or similar field and one year of experience.

RSE Level IV: A Bachelor’s Degree in computer or physical science, statistics, bioinformatics, analytics, or similar field and seven years of experience; Master’s Degree in computer or physical science, software engineering, statistics, bioinformatics, analytics, or similar field and five years of experience; Doctoral Degree in computer or physical science, statistics, bioinformatics, analytics, or similar field and three years of experience.

Applicants will be considered at the level for which they qualify. Appropriate college coursework or vocational/technical training may substitute at an equivalent rate for the required experience but does not negate the minimum degree requirement(s).

The ideal candidate will possess the following education, experience, and skills:

• AI frameworks, such as Tensorflow, PyTorch, etc
• Building digital twins using NVIDIA Omniverse, one or more digital content creation softwares, such as Unreal, Maya, etc.
• Physics-based modeling using chemistry or materials codes, weather simulations, etc.
• Statistical modeling and data visualization
• Parallel software design with MPI, OpenMP, pthreads, or CUDA
• GPU computing environment
• Deep Learning, image processing, natural language processing, generative AI, and large AI models
• For level III, applicants must have at least 3 years of software engineering experience, including at least one software project as lead engineer
• For level IV, applicants must have at least 4 years of software engineering experience, including at least 3 software projects as lead engineer

These positions require U.S. work authorization.

Final candidates must be able to pass a Level 2 (FBI fingerprinting) background check.

These positions will be based in one of our Gainesville offices and may include a hybrid schedule of 3 days in the office (Wednesday required), and 2 days remote.

Applicants are required to submit the following with their application:

• Cover Letter
• Resume or CV
• Professional References (Minimum of 3)

The application must be submitted by 11:55 p.m. of the posting end date.