Space Software Technician

at  University of Portsmouth

DISCOVER THE ADVANTAGES OF JOINING OUR UNIVERSITY. WE OFFER A RANGE OF ATTRACTIVE BENEFITS AND OPPORTUNITIES TO ENHANCE YOUR WORK EXPERIENCE:

• Competitive salary, including incremental progression within your scale.
• Generous pension scheme.
• Generous leave entitlement of 32–35 days a year, plus bank holidays, and an additional Christmas closure.
• Family-friendly policies supporting flexible working.
• Staff discounts and loyalty schemes.
• Staff car parking and discounted public travel.
• Excellent training and development opportunities.
• Staff wellbeing programmes.
• Long service milestones, and recognition awards which may be awarded to staff for exceptional performance.
• Recreation facilities, including discounted gym membership, food on campus schemes, use of the Library and staff social activities.
• Discounted learning.
• Start-up business mentoring from expert entrepreneurs via our Entrepreneurs in Residence programme.
• The perks don’t stop there - click ‘apply’ for further information on My Reward and Benefits

We are seeking a Space Software Technician to ensure the smooth operation and efficient utilization of the SCIAMA High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster. This role is essential to support the computational needs of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG) staff, students, postdocs, and their external collaborators, enabling them to conduct cutting-edge research.
The successful applicant will work with the ICG Senior Software Technician and University Information Services to set up and manage a small cluster for teaching and prototyping machine learning, will manage web development for a space data course and will contribute to data science activities supporting this course. The successful applicant will have the opportunity to engage in enterprise, outreach and public engagement as needed in line with the Department, Faculty and University objectives.
The ICG consists of 20 academic staff, around 20 postdoctoral researchers, 6 research software engineers, around 30 PhD students, and has an active international visitors programme. Portsmouth has major involvement in the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), the Vera Rubin Observatory, ESA’s Euclid satellite mission, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), the Gravitational Wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO), and other international collaborations. The University of Portsmouth is a member of the South-East Physics Network (SEPnet) and hosts the 4704-core SCIAMA supercomputer. More information is available at http://www.icg.port.ac.uk/
This appointment is a fixed-term contract to 31 March 2025.
For internal candidates it may be possible to apply for this role under the Secondment Policy . If you wish to apply as a secondee, you must have approval of your line manager in advance of submitting your application form. Please confirm in your application that your line manager has approved this.
Hybrid and flexible working will be considered for the right candidate with the expectation to be in Portsmouth at least 1 day per week.
Interviews are anticipated to be held week commencing 28 October 2024.
For an informal discussion about the role please contact Amanda Hudson, Institute Manager, via email: amanda.hudson@port.ac.uk