Software Engineer (MESA), Center for Computational Astrophysics

About the role

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 support the MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics) software instrument tool and to help build, improve, and support software efforts within the center.

Responsibilities

• Technical Management and Enhancement: Adapt MESA to new technologies and evolving requirements such as compiler updates, library evolutions, operating systems progression, and hardware advances (e.g. GPU-porting).
• Code Maintenance and Enhancement: Provide daily care and enhancement of the MESA source code, in collaboration with the MESA-developers team and the MESA user community.
• Testing: Participate in the daily MESA testing framework in partnership with the MESA-developer team.
• Product Release: Oversee and collaborate on the public releases of the source code to the MESA community.
• Community Support: Respond agilely to the software needs of the MESA user community.
• Team Partnership: Become a key partner of the MESA-developer team, with a focus on horizontal collaboration rather than hierarchical reporting.

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.