Ledig stilling på Universitetet i Oslo

Blindern og Urbygningen (Foto: Wikimedia og Colourbox)

Research Software Engineer

Deadline 28.02.2019

About the position

Universitetet i Oslo

The University of Oslo is Norway’s oldest and highest rated institution of research and education with 28 000 students and 7000 employees. Its broad range of academic disciplines and internationally esteemed research communities make UiO an important contributor to society.


The Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics is situated at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

Flere stillinger fra Universitetet i Oslo

1-2 positions as Research Software Engineer (RSE) are available at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics. The position as Research Software Engineer is connected to the Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics (RoCS) funded by the Research Council of Norway and the University of Oslo from November 1st, 2017.

The primary goal of RoCS 10-year effort lies in understanding the workings of the energetic Sun. To attack this goal a concerted effort of numerical modelling, both fluid (extended MHD) and particle oriented, will be combined with high quality observations taken at ground based and space-based observatories to produce models of the active Sun. The Solar group at the ITA is led by Mats Carlsson, who is also the leader of RoCS.

The group has an internationally leading competence in radiative transfer and radiative hydrodynamics. Observationally, the group has access to the Swedish 1-meter Solar Telescope on La Palma, to ALMA, to several space-based satellites such as NASA’s IRIS and SDO, JAXA’s Hinode and in the near future ESA’s Solar Orbiter. The group makes extensive use of local and national High-Performance Computing facilities. A large coding effort is underway with the goal of developing exascale-ready codes that can scale to more than a million threads.

A successful candidate will provide software engineering expertise, support and training to RoCS researchers. The RSE will promote the use of best practices at all stages of the research software development cycle and ensure the sustainable development of scientific software. In addition, the RSA will help the solar physics research group with running simulation codes, both the Bifrost radiation MHD code and radiative transfer post-processing codes (RH, MULTI3D) ), post-processing of observational data, and assist in the analysis of the data.

Qualification requirements

This position requires

  • Relevant higher education (e.g. Physics/Astrophysics/Computer Science) at a MSc level.
  • Experience of the academic research software development cycle, including development, deployment, maintenance, and user support
  • Experience of supporting expert and non-expert users of research computing facilities and software
  • Expert knowledge of working within a Unix/Linux computing environment.
  • Detailed working knowledge of multiple programming and scripting languages, including high-level interpreted languages (e.g. Python) and at least one compiled language (C/C++/Fortran) widely used for high performance scientific computing.
  • Experience of building and working with parallel applications (MPI and shared memory programming e.g. OpenMP).
  • Proficient in the use of revision control systems
  • Excellent command of English, both written and spoken

It is an advantage with

  • Relevant higher education (e.g. Physics/Astrophysics/Computer Science) at a PhD level.
  • Experience of working as part of a highly-skilled technical team
  • Ability to write clear and concise technical documentation and training material
  • Good awareness and experience of co-processing technologies such as GPGPUs and other emerging hardware.
  • Experience with parallel I/O, in particular at application/library (e.g. MPI-IO, HDF5) and file system layers (e.g. Lustre, PVFS)
  • Ability to install and configure software packages, including scientific libraries and scientific simulation packages.

Personal skills

  • Good interpersonal skills
  • Ability to apply specialist knowledge and skills to complex problems
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills
  • Ability to train others
  • Ability to prepare and deliver technical presentations to diverse audiences with varying levels of background knowledge
  • Ability to work and acquire new skills independently.

We offer

  • Salary NOK 576 100 - 682 200 per annum depending on qualifications in a position as Senior engineer, position code 1181
  • A professionally stimulating working environment
  • Attractive welfare benefits and a generous pension agreement, in addition to Oslo’s family-friendly environment with its rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities

How to apply

The application must include:

  • cover letter
  • CV (complete overview of education and work experience)
  • copies of educational certificates, transcript of records and letters for recommendation
  • names and contact details of 2-3 references (names, relation to candidate and telephone number)

The application with attachments must be delivered in our electronic recruiting system, please follow the link “Apply for this job”.

Foreign applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University's grading system. Please note that all documents should be in English (or a Scandinavian language).

Formal regulations

Applicants may be called in for an interview.

According to the Norwegian Freedom and Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.

In accordance with the University of Oslo’s equal opportunities policy, we invite applications from all interested individuals regardless of gender or ethnicity.

UiO has an agreement for all employees, aiming to secure rights to research results a.o

Contact information

  • Mats Carlsson, phone: +47 99032357, e-mail: mats.carlsson@astro.uio.no

For technical questions regarding the application system, please contact HR Adviser Elin Thoresen, +47 22 85 71 96, e-mail: elin.thoresen@mn.uio.no

Apply for this job

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