Software Engineer (MESA), Center for Computational Astrophysics

Description

The Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) at the Flatiron Institute, a division of the Simons Foundation, is seeking a full-time research software engineer to develop, maintain, and contribute to the community-oriented software instrument tool MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics), and contribute to projects that align with the research directions of the CCA. More information about the CCA can be found on the CCA website. We expect the position to adapt over time to the needs of the broader astronomical community and CCA research community.

Research in astronomy and astrophysics depends critically on open source and other scientific software projects that are largely community driven (i.e. not developed or maintained by specific institutions). The primary role of this position (approximately 60% of effort) is to help support the community-oriented software instrument tool MESA.

The other major role of this position is to support and contribute to projects that align with the current research directions of the CCA, and provide leadership in supporting the larger software community within CCA.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

The CCA seeks a full-time research software engineer to support the MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics) software instrument tool, and to help build, improve, and support software efforts within the center.

MESA is a suite of open-source libraries extensively used in computational stellar astrophysics. It uses adaptive mesh refinement and sophisticated timestep controls, and supports shared memory parallelism based on OpenMP. Its wide-ranging capabilities allow the simulation of diverse stellar evolution scenarios, from low-mass to massive stars, including advanced evolutionary stages and binary interactions.

Within the MESA Project, the successful candidate will be responsible for:

1. Technical Management and Enhancement: Adapting MESA to new technologies and evolving requirements such as compiler updates, library evolutions, operating systems progression, and hardware advances (e.g. GPU-porting).
2. Code Maintenance and Enhancement: Providing daily care and enhancement of the MESA source code, in collaboration with the MESA-developers team and the MESA user community.
3. Testing: Participating in the daily MESA testing framework in partnership with the MESA-developer team.
4. Product Release: Overseeing and collaborating on the public releases of the source code to the MESA community.
5. Community Support: Responding agilely to the software needs of the MESA user community.
6. Team Partnership: Becoming a key partner of the mesa-developer team, with a focus on horizontal collaboration rather than hierarchical reporting.

Within the CCA, the successful candidate will be expected to:

1. Help support various software development efforts of CCA scientists.
2. Mentor and train junior scientists, including the Flatiron Software Research Fellows
3. Organize community efforts around software education within CCA and potentially Flatiron

There will also be opportunities for on-going skill development in software development and scientific computing, including mentoring by senior research scientists, discussions and tutorials with the CCA software community and the SCC (Scientific Computing Core), and support for attending external tutorials and conferences. The research software engineer will be part of a growing community of Flatiron scientists and software engineers working on astronomical software, including Flatiron Software Research Fellows (postdocs), CCA-affiliated SCC scientists, and other research software engineers in CCA. Members of this community will be encouraged to collaborate as well as to create and seek opportunities for skill development.

The research software engineer will report to a research scientist (equivalent of faculty) at CCA and will join a growing team of research software engineers across the Flatiron Institute. The position will be based in person at the Simons Foundation office in New York City.

Visit the Simons Foundation career page to learn more.

Qualifications

Education

• M.S. or Ph.D. in astronomy, physics, computer science, mathematics, statistics, or a related technical discipline

Essential Qualifications

At least 3 years of experience with software development in a research context, including:

• Experience developing software in a research environment (including academic contexts like graduate school and postdoctoral appointments, or research-oriented industry).
• Proficiency with software development in at least one compiled language (e.g., Fortran 95, C, C++ etc.)
• Proficiency with collaborative version control systems (especially Git & GitHub).
• Experience with parallel programming (e.g. OpenMP, MPI).
• Experience working with collaborative software engineering practices, including coding standards and code review.
• Experience writing documentation and an interest in supporting user communities.
• Experience with project management and developing multiple concurrent projects.
• Technical and scientific curiosity with a collaborative attitude.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience with the MESA software instrument.
• Experience with commonly-used high-level languages (Python, Julia, MATLAB, etc.).
• Experience with HPC, GPU, and/or code profiling and optimization.
• Experience with ML/AI tools (PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow)
• Working knowledge of applied mathematical concepts and numerical methods.
• Working knowledge of astronomy and physics core concepts.

Compensation and Benefits

The full-time starting annual compensation range for this position is:

• (3-6 years of experience) $150K–$185K
• (6-8+ years of experience) $190K–$215K

In addition to competitive salaries, the Simons Foundation provides employees with an outstanding benefits package.