Research software engineer for a research-data infrastructure framework

BEMÆRK: Ansøgningsfristen er overskredet

The Department of Clinical Medicine at Faculty of Health at Aarhus University, in collaboration with the Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus (SDCA), invites applications for one research software engineer position to work (in person or remote) with a team on a software and data engineering project, starting September 1 or as soon as possible thereafter. The position is full-time for up to 2 years.

As an employee at the Department of Clinical Medicine, you will be part of what is probably the largest health science research department in Denmark. Our clinical research covers all the medical specialities and takes place in close collaboration with the university hospital and the regional hospitals in the Central Denmark Region. We have approx. 30,000 square metres of modern research facilities for experimental surgery and medicine, animal facilities and also advanced scanners at our disposal. The department has overall responsibility for the Master’s degree programs in medicine and in molecular medicine. At the department we are approx. 670 academic employees, 500 PhD students and 160 technical/administrative employees who are cooperating across disciplines. As an employee, you will be working on Aarhus University Hospital or another hospital in the Central Denmark Region. You can read more about the department here and about the faculty here.

SDCA is a center that brings together researchers and clinicians in an aim to better integrate work on multiple aspects of diabetes treatment, research, and education.

This project aims to build an open and scalable data infrastructure framework for working with, discovering, and managing data that follows FAIR and open science principles. This is a software project that focuses on working with data, but not on data itself. A description of the project (called Seedcase) can be found at https://steno-aarhus.github.io/seedcase-project/. The Seedcase project will be contributing to the research of SDCA (https://www.stenoaarhus.dk/research/) as well as that of other Steno centers and research initiatives throughout Denmark.

SDCA is still a young and growing center, so its technical and social infrastructure are still being actively developed and refined. All SDCA personnel, including this current position and the rest of the Seedcase team, have a direct and impactful influence on the building and developing of the culture and infrastructure. Aside from working on Seedcase, other responsibilities for the research software engineer, as well as the rest of the team, include contributing to building this organization and culture.

Your job responsibilities

As the research software engineer, you will be:

• Building and developing RESTful APIs (or APIs in general) for Seedcase
• Building and developing the front end of the application
• Writing and reviewing code and documentation
• Assisting with or developing tools for improving analysis and workflow pipelines related to using Seedcase (e.g. making Python/R packages and scripts)

While there are many tasks to work on for the Seedcase project, the position offers a large amount of autonomy and freedom. As long as tasks are completed and we make progress on our milestones, there is the potential for the applicant to collaborate on other research projects within AU and SDCA. If the applicant has interest and motivation in those other projects or wishes to learn new skills and knowledge, we definitely encourage and support pursuing these types of activities.

Team-wide responsibilities

The primary responsibility for all members of the Seedcase team will be building and developing the Seedcase project. More specifically, tasks will include:

• Refining, critiquing, and improving on the descriptions of the use-cases and the design and architecture of Seedcase
• Finding and reviewing similar projects to identify what to use and what can be improved upon
• Building, internally testing, and developing each component of Seedcase into Minimally Valuable Products for early external testing and refining
• Writing public-facing, beginner-friendly, and accessible documentation on contributing to and using Seedcase
• Creating and maintaining websites connected to Seedcase (e.g. through GitHub Pages)

All team members’ secondary responsibilities (dependent on time available outside of the Seedcase project):

• Contributing to tasks and projects related to the general administration or building up of the general research environment (e.g. writing and/or updating onboarding documentation)
• Assisting with building up general capacity and skills in computational and programmatic skills and knowledge through training and documentation
• Creating teaching material and running training sessions related to Seedcase
• Contributing to Steno-wide data and software engineering activities, such as building tools to help streamline or automating common tasks that staff and researchers do

Note, while the team as a whole will need to complete these tasks, any individual member of the team does not need to do all these tasks and instead will be assigned specific sections of the project.

You will report to the Unit Head Annelli Sandbæk and to the team leader Luke Johnston.

Your competencies

We expect, at a minimum, that you:

• Are proficient in communicating (written and oral) in English
• Are motivated, interested, and comfortable with working on projects that have recently started and that require contributing to a diverse set of tasks typical of the early stages of any project
• Have demonstrated knowledge of and experience in using either Python, JavaScript, or R for general programming tasks (need to be open to learning them)
• Have used Git or other version control software on a fairly regular basis for projects
• Have knowledge or experience in developing user-facing content, such as websites, through HTML and CSS.

And we prefer, but don’t require, that you:

• Have developed or contributed to software packages in Python or R that abides by community-accepted standard practices (e.g. PIP or CRAN)
• Have worked on, started, or contributed to open source projects on open sharing and collaborative platforms (e.g. GitHub, GitLab)
• Have knowledge of and familiarity with general software development practices
• Are interested in or motivated to be involved in aspects of building up and developing the culture and infrastructure of a newer organization
• Have knowledge of and experience in implementing and adhering to FAIR/open principles
• Are familiar with general User Interface (UI) and/or User Experience (UX) design principles
• Have experience in or familiarity with interacting with and/or developing APIs
• Are familiar with general data engineering practices
• Have some experience or familiarity with the research environment and its specific set of needs

Who we are/will be

We currently have a core team of one full-time research software engineers, a data manager, a database administrator, a team leader, as well as affiliate researchers and the primary investigator. We have a great working environment with an informal and positive atmosphere.

What we offer

• The position can (depending on where the applicant lives) be largely remote / work from home.
• If you live or move to Aarhus for the position, we expect that you come into the office at SDCA at least twice a week. SDCA office is placed at Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus, Palle Juul-Jensens Boulevard 99, Building A, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark
• If you live outside of Denmark, we expect (and will cover) for you to participate in bigger in person meetings/events
• The working hours are flexible.
• Any necessary hardware or software will be provided or covered for.
• The position allows for a lot of freedom and autonomy in work and in the decision making on the direction the project will take.

Contact information

If you have any specific questions about the position, contact Luke Johnston, +45 2966 4675.


Terms of employment

Terms of employment and pay are regulated by the collective agreement between the Ministry of Taxation and the applicable agreement.

Application

Your application must include the following:

• Motivated application
• Curriculum Vitae
• Indication of education (a copy of the diplomas should be uploaded)
• References/recommendations can be uploaded separately in the recruitment system

We refer to the faculty’s Guideline for applicants.

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which each individual has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants.

The application must be submitted via Aarhus University’s recruitment system, which can be accessed under the job advertisement on Aarhus University's website.
 


Aarhus University

Aarhus University is an academically diverse and research-intensive university with a strong commitment to high-quality research and education and the development of society nationally and globally. The university offers an inspiring research and teaching environment to its 38,000 students (FTEs) and 8,300 employees, and has an annual revenues of EUR 935 million. Learn more at www.international.au.dk/

INFORMATIONER OM STILLINGEN:

- Arbejdspladsen ligger i:

Aarhus Kommune

-Virksomheden tilbyder:

-Arbejdsgiver:

Aarhus Universitet, Palle Juul-Jensens Boulevard 11, 8200 Aarhus N

-Ansøgning:

Ansøgningsfrist: 09-06-2023; - ansøgningsfristen er overskredet

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