Overview
Research Software Engineer Assistant – Durham
Advanced Research Computing
Grade 6: – £31,236 – £37,694 per annum
Fixed Term – Full Time
Contract Duration: 2.5 years through a development plan towards a substantive grade 7 position, a case for which will be made at the appropriate time, subject to funding
Contracted Hours per Week: 35
Closing Date: 12-Oct-2025, 11:59:00 PM
Disclosure and Barring Service Requirement: Not Applicable.
The University
At Durham University we are proud of our people. A globally outstanding centre of educational excellence, a collegiate community of extraordinary people, a unique and historic setting – Durham is a university like no other.
Across the University we have a huge variety of roles and career opportunities, which together make us a large and successful community, which is a key hub of activity within our region and nationally. Whether you are at the very start, middle or end of your career, there is a role for you. We believe everyone has their own unique skills to offer.
We would be thrilled if you would consider joining our thriving University. Further information about the University can be found here.
Find out more about the benefits of working at the University and what it is like to live and work in the Durham area on our Why Join Us? – Information Page.
The Role and the Department
The Directorate of Advanced Research Computing (ARC) provides a broad computational capability to underpin and help define the nature of research and innovation that can be undertaken with the institution.
ARC’s mission is to deliver a coherent strategy for the computational support of research: enabling research and innovation to be at the forefront of computational practice; enabling academic leadership through the adoption and evolution of leading technology; fostering associated expertise; and enhancing interdisciplinary collaborations. Leading-edge platforms including High Performance Computing, computational and cutting-edge data analytics methods, and growth and retention of vital capacity in research software engineering and technical R&D are at the core of this endeavour.
We organise our activity under three main pillars:
- Research Computing Platforms
- Research Software Engineering
- Developing researcher computational skills
Which is delivered by the Administration, Research Computing Platforms (RCP) and Research Software Engineering (RSE) teams.
Through collaboration between the Institute for Data Science, Department of Computer Science and ARC, several grants have been secured under the umbrella of the UK’s of Digital Research Technology Professionals (dRTP) programme. These projects aim to create an upskilling and code porting landscape – predominantly for simulations and AI running on HPC machinery – for the whole UK DRI community. Their mission includes creating material for the RTP upskilling, running upskilling events, establishing a national performance assessment service, conducting performance assessments and benchmarking case studies, and helping codes to transition into the era of accelerate compute.
You will be embedded into the SHAREing (https://shareing-dri.github.io) project team, working closely with the PI and other project members, the platforms team within ARC and realise synergies with related activity within Durham and Nationally. We expect the successful candidate to develop specialist knowledge and expertise across several advanced computing technologies core to the deliverables that are part of the grant and services delivered by ARC longer-term, including the following technologies:
- Compiled languages (e.g. C/Fortran)
- Shared and distributed memory programming tools (e.g. OpenMP, MPI)
- Accelerator programming (e.g. CUDA, OpenCL, SYCL)
- Machine Learning libraries such as Tensorflow or PyTorch
- Serial and parallel debugging and profiling
- Parallel numerical algorithms and libraries
- System software stack administration and novel/experimental hardware.
Over the course of the appointment, the candidate will be supported through a development plan towards a substantive grade 7 position, a case for which will be made at the appropriate time, subject to funding.
Working at Durham
- A competitive salary is only one part of the many fantastic benefits you will receive if you join the University: you will also receive access to the following fantastic benefits:
- 27 Days annual leave per year in addition to 8 public holidays and 4 customary days per year – a total of 39 days per year. The University closes between Christmas and New Year – please include or delete if not applicable.
- No matter how you travel to work, we have you covered. We have parking across campus, a cycle to work scheme which helps you to buy a bike and discount with local bus and train companies.
- Lots of support for health and wellbeing including discounted membership for our state of the art sport and gym facilities and access to a 24-7 Employee Assistance Programme.
- On site nursery is available plus access to holiday camps for children aged 5-16.
- Family friendly policies, including maternity and adoption leave, which are among the most generous in the higher education sector (and likely above and beyond many employers).
- There is a genuine commitment to developing our colleagues professionally and personally. There is a comprehensive range of development courses, apprenticeships and access to qualifications and routes to develop your career in the University. All staff have dedicated annual time to concentrate on their personal development opportunities.
- The opportunity to take part in staff volunteering activities to make a difference in the local community
- Discounts are available via our benefits portal including; money off at supermarkets, high street retailers, IT products such as Apple, the cinema and days out at various attractions.
- We offer generous pension schemes.
- Discover more about our total rewards and benefits package here.
Durham University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion
Our collective aim is to create an open and inclusive environment where everyone can reach their full potential and we believe our staff should reflect the diversity of the global community in which we work.
As a University equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are a key part of the University’s Strategy and a central part of everything we do. We also live by our values and our Staff Code of Conduct. At Durham we actively work towards providing an environment where our staff and students can study, work and live in a community which is supportive and inclusive. It’s important to us that all of our colleagues are aligned to both our values and commitment to EDI.
We welcome and encourage applications from members of groups who are under-represented in our work force including people with disabilities, women and black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. If you have taken time out of your career, and you feel it relevant, let us know about it in your application. If you are a candidate with a disability, we are committed to ensuring fair treatment throughout the recruitment process. We will make adjustments to support the interview process wherever it is reasonable to do so and, where successful, reasonable adjustments will be made to support people within their role.
What you need to demonstrate when you apply/Person Specification
When you apply it is important that you let us know what skills/experience you have from a similar role and/or what skills/experience you have which would make you right for this role. Further information about the role and responsibilities is at the end of this job description. Where a criteria has an asterisk* next to it, it may be given additional weighting when your application is considered.
Your application should cover the following criteria:
Essential Criteria
Qualifications/Experience
- Good oral and written communication skills and the ability to develop excellent working relationships both internally and externally.
- Educated to degree level (or equivalent experience) in a computing or related compute-intense discipline.
- Ability to rapidly assimilate the research context and understanding the computational and data analytics algorithms, requirements and interfaces involved in research programming projects.
- Demonstrable experience of working on multiple projects under external guidance
- Experience of working independently as well as part of a team
- Ability to gain specialist knowledge and expertise used to influence service delivery and activities within the organisation. Whilst no single specialism is essential, candidates must be familiar with HPC and the role and application of relevant technologies, such as:
- Compiled languages (C/Fortran)
- Shared and distributed memory programming tools) (e.g. OpenMP, MPI)
- Accelerator programming (e.g. CUDA, OpenCL, SYCL)
- Machine learning libraries such as Tensorflow or PyTorch
- Serial and parallel debugging and profiling
- Parallel numerical algorithms and libraries
- System software stack administration and novel/experimental hardware.
7.Appreciation of software development best practice including issue tracking, testing, documentation, version control, continuous integration, software re-use and deployment.
- Ability to solve complex problems and decide on and plan appropriate solutions.
Desirable
- 1. Experience of developing and delivering training materials to others
- 2. Participation in professional networks particularly those relating to the DRI context
How to apply
To progress to the assessment stage, candidates must evidence each of the essential criteria required for the role in the person specification above. Where there are desirable criteria we would also urge you to provide any relevant evidence. Please don’t forget to check if there is any weighted criteria (see above).
While some criteria will be considered at the shortlisting stage, other criteria may be considered later in the assessment process, such as questions at interview.
Submitting your application
We prefer to receive applications online. We will update you about your application at various points during the process, via automated emails from our e-recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folder periodically to ensure you receive all emails .
What you are required to submit:
- A CV
- A covering letter or statement which shows examples of how you meet all of the criteria within the Person Specification
- Optional – EDI Statement which should include your personal views on how this affects or benefits the workplace.
Contact details
Tobias Weinzierl, Director of IDAS and SHAREing PI:
Rebecca Appleby, ARC Senior Administrator:
Samantha Finnigan, Senior Research Software Engineer and RSE Team Lead:
Samantha.finnigan@durham.ac.uk
Typical Role Requirements
Service Delivery
- Show a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and the University’s values.
- Ensure that the University’s procedures and values are always reflected in all aspects of the service and adapt ways of working where this is not evident.
- Provide specialist advice and make decisions to resolve problems relating to the services you are responsible.
- Share technical knowledge and expertise to support other team members.
- Use your experience and problem-solving skills to investigate and resolve issues relevant to your role and make recommendations based on your findings.
- Provide the best possible service to staff, students and others who you work with by reviewing and make suggestions to improve the service.
- Collect, organise and record data and information accurately to provide reports.
Planning and Organising
- Plan and organise own workload to deliver the role.
- Deliver assigned projects in accordance with agreed objectives ensuring a high level of accuracy, complexity, originality and excellence.
- Seek feedback from staff, students and anyone else that you come across as part of your role in projects and related DRI activities to ensure that the service is updated to meet customer expectations.
Teaching and Learning Support
- Commission, construct and setup test and experimental scenarios and practical sessions.
- Be an expert in the use of a range of digital equipment including HPC and accelerator technologies.
- Provide high-level technical guidance and advice to solve problems and help shape the delivery of teaching, learning and research outcomes.
- Arrange the maintenance of technical and experimental facilities, teaching and research environments.
- Setup, demonstrate, instruct and supervise the use and operation of specialist pieces of equipment.
- Record, monitor and collate information, analyse patterns and trends as part of teaching and research activities.
Communication/Liaison
- Develop and improve services by taking part in meetings, working groups and committees.
- Explain and demonstrate to others how to carry out tasks and use a range of tools, specialist equipment and digital services.
- Create good working relationships, including internal and external networks which allow you to increase your knowledge and skills, while swapping information with peers.
- Build relationships with contractors and third-party suppliers to share good practice, exchange information and work together on joint initiatives.
- Any other reasonable duties.
Useful links
Further information on the grants can be found via: https://cake-dri.github.io/cake.github.io/ and https://shareing-dri.github.io/sharing.github.io/
Please note that in submitting your application Durham University will be processing your data. We would ask you to consider the relevant University Privacy Statement Privacy Notices – Durham University which provides information on the collation, storing and use of data.
SECONDMENT
The post is full time or part time, fixed term for a 2.5 year period and may be offered on an internal secondment basis subject to the agreement of the current line manager.
As this is a development role, the candidate will be supported through a development plan towards a substantive grade 7 position, a case for which will be made at the appropriate time, subject to funding.
When appointing to this role the University must ensure that it meets any applicable immigration requirements, including salary thresholds which are applicable to some visas.
IMPORTANT: Before applying for this role, please make sure you have the right to work in the country where the role is based. Unless it clearly stipulates within in the job advert above that the hiring company is looking to or able to sponsor applicants it is deemed that the hiring employer will only consider applications from those able to comply with and work in the country where the role is based.
