Foundation Scientific Software Engineer - K-Scale research

Our reward package

We're hiring for a Foundation Scientific Software Engineer - K-Scale research, to help us make a difference to our planet.

Our Foundation Scientific Software Engineer will work a hybrid pattern of homeworking and in our Exeter HQ.

As our Foundation Scientific Software Engineer - K-Scale research, your starting salary will be £24146.00 and you will have opportunities to progress to £26641.00 over time. New joiners to the Met Office will start on the salary band minima.

Your total reward package is potentially worth up to £34,000 annually, which includes basic salary, potential corporate bonus and employer pension contributions.

In addition you will be paid £2,500 per annum as a market supplement to reflect the demand for your skills. You will be paid this market driven allowance from April 2022 until March 2024 in your monthly pay whilst performing this role.

Who we are

We provide critical weather services and world-leading climate science, to help people make better decisions to stay safe and thrive.

Together:

• We’re a force for good
• We’re experts by nature
• We live and breathe it
• We’re better together
• We keep evolving

Find out more about our values - https://bit.ly/3fokaRD

Background

The Regional Model Evaluation and Development (RMED) group conducts scientific research and develops technical capabilities to improve our current and next-generation regional modelling systems. These enable simulation of local-scale weather and hazards from days to decades in the future and underpin provision of critical weather and climate services in the UK and around the world. RMED has a track-record of delivering high-profile research projects and scientific publications in collaboration with partners across the Met Office, UK academia and international organisations – work which is underpinned and reliant on our technical infrastructure. We endeavour to maintain a supportive and inclusive working environment, and the RMED team comes from a range of backgrounds and includes many flexible and part-time workers.

We offer an exciting opportunity for a Foundation Scientific Software Engineer (FSSE) to join RMED to support our pioneering research to develop and evaluate very large domain regional and global modelling capability at kilometre grid-scale (known as ‘K-Scale’) to assess their costs and benefits for next-generation modelling. This is technically challenging - working at the cutting edge of current capabilities and exploring the frontiers of what’s possible through:

• developing and running simulations with over 1 billion grid points, far in excess of what we currently use for operational weather forecasting and climate simulation, across a hierarchy of model configurations,
• exploiting some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, ensuring we make best use of available resources and optimise our tools and methods to deliver new research in a timely manner,
• making effective use of the vast quantities of output data for analysis within the Met Office and enabling efficient sharing by external collaborators in the UK and internationally.

This research underpins the Met Office’s ability to determine the relative value of global kilometre-scale modelling for delivery of weather and climate services in future. By exploiting new capabilities, we can also deliver new process understanding, such as on the feedbacks between small and large scales in the atmosphere, particularly in the tropics where deep convection both leads to hazardous weather locally and drives the larger scale atmosphere.

The successful candidate will join a team of enthusiastic scientists and SSEs, becoming a core part of the team and helping to deliver this ambitious research project. The role requires a substantial level of scientific and technical collaboration with other researchers across the Met Office and with our UK and international research partners in academia and other national and trans-national research centres. The successful candidate will play a leading role on the technical aspects of developing new model configurations to enable novel research experiments, implementing and optimising workflows to deliver research, and facilitating the curation, analysis and sharing of output data.

Job Purpose

To undertake a variety of technical development in support of K-Scale research, working across the whole research chain from initial design and configuration of model experiments, to optimising and implementing workflows to run simulations, and designing and developing improvements to the curation and sharing of research outputs.

As the Foundation Scientific Software Engineer - K-Scale research , the key duties are:

• To develop the technical infrastructure required for K-Scale research, including an understanding of the requirements and limitations of working with large model configurations.
• To support development and delivery of K-Scale as a collaborative research activity with UK and international partners.
• To follow, develop and improve our software development procedures, working practices and standards to ensure our research follows good practice.
• To document and support our software developments to ensure capability developments follow best practice and provide benefits to other Met Office activities.
• To ensure K-Scale workflows are sufficiently optimised to allow delivery and evaluation of large model runs, choosing and making good use of appropriate tools and methods across available computing platforms at the Met Office and elsewhere.
• To communicate and understand requirements for K-Scale research and ability to share knowledge and expertise with scientists and SSEs across RMED, Met Office science and with partners.

Essential Qualifications, Skills & Abilities

Desirable Qualifications, Skills & Abilities

We encourage you to apply if you believe you meet our essential criteria, but your application will be even stronger if you have:

How to apply

If you share our values, we’d love to hear from you. Apply below using the link to our application form (which must address how you meet each of the essential criteria).

Closing date 18/06/2023 at 23:59 with interviews commencing from 04/07/2023 . You will hear from us once the closing date has passed. Our interviews are taking place remotely via Microsoft Teams.

Other team members typically work a hybrid pattern of homeworking and working at our state of the art office in Exeter, particularly to support face to face collaboration and other team activities as required. Please ask at interview if you have particular questions on working patterns and location. We are unable to offer expenses for travel to your normal place of work.

How we can help:

If you are considering applying and need assistance to do so, please contact us via askHR@metoffice.gov.uk. You can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us. Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test or a scenario-based activity.

You can select in your application to be considered under the Disability Confident (Guaranteed Interview) Scheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role.

We are an equal opportunities employer, welcoming applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us before we confirm your employment.

Internal applicants: In line with the Science Progressions framework, if you are a current Met Office employee within the Science or Scientific Consultancy career families (within the Science Profession) in a fluid-grade role, please ensure that you submit your application at the same Pay Group level as your current job.