Senior Software Developer

The Opportunity

Do you thrive on crafting innovative solutions for scientific data access? Are you passionate about accelerating scientific workflows to enable data-driven discovery?

We’re seeking a talented and passionate Senior Software Developer to join our team at OPeNDAP. In this upper-level position, you’ll play a key role across the entire software development lifecycle, from design and testing to deployment, for our open-source OPeNDAP data server and related projects. Your leadership skills will be crucial, as you’ll mentor colleagues and collaborate with external contributors to the projects. Your primary focus will be to work with the OPeNDAP Product Owner on a NASA contract to help develop systems that work within NASA’s Earthdata Cloud software ecosystem.

About OPeNDAP

OPeNDAP, a 501(c)3 non-profit founded in 2000, provides an open software protocol that allows users to access and subset remote data regardless of the local storage format. Currently, OPeNDAP plays a leading role in providing fast, efficient, and performant access to NASA’s Earth Science data in the cloud, enabling seamless data exploration and accelerating scientific workflows. OPeNDAP’s user-friendly approach is supported by a small, remote, and full-time team of six, along with a committed six-person Board of Directors. NASA is currently OPeNDAP’s main funder, with past contributions coming from U.S. federal agencies NOAA and NSF, and agencies in France and Australia.

Why Work at OPeNDAP?

• You’ll have an opportunity to work on cutting-edge technologies that have a real impact on scientific research and translation.
• Fun fact: OPeNDAP has been a remote company since its inception. Our team today is fully remote with members located across the U.S.
• With such a small team, our work environment is collaborative and supportive. We work fairly independently but ask each other for help as needed.
• OPeNDAP is community-oriented. You’ll get to be part of a creative and enthusiastic community dedicated to open-source software development and supporting science.
• We offer a generous benefits package, including medical, dental, retirement (12% employer contributions – fully vested), and paid time off (15 days + 10 federal holidays).
• We offer competitive pay, especially within the academic software development sector. The salary for this position ranges from $90,000-$120,000. 

Requirements

Due to the employment requirements of NASA, applicants must: 

• Be a U.S. Citizen or U.S.Permanent Resident 
• Be U.S. based
• Pass a background check

Key Responsibilities

• Plan, design, develop, test, coordinate, and deploy features for the OPeNDAP data server and associated software.
• Collaborate with both external and internal scientists and engineers to understand data access requirements and translate them into software solutions.
• Write clean, well-documented, and maintainable code in C++, Python, and Java.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of the OPeNDAP codebase through code reviews and testing.
• Advise on the latest advancements in scientific data access technologies.
• Work effectively in a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) environment.
• Transition seamlessly between research and development (R&D) activities.
• Develop procedures and operating instructions.
• Travel to required group planning meetings run by NASA.

Desired Qualifications

• Minimum of 6 years of experience in software development.
• Strong proficiency in C++, Python, and Java.
• Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• A background in scientific research, especially in the Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Desired skills/experience

• Experience with software development methodologies, including Agile and traditional waterfall approaches.
• Excellent understanding of software design principles and best practices.
• Experience with version control systems (e.g., git/GitHub).
• Experience with unit testing frameworks.
• Excellent communication, organizational, and collaboration skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Experience with scientific data formats (e.g., NetCDF, HDF5, Zarr).
• Experience with web development technologies (e.g., HTTP, REST APIs).
• Experience with cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS).
• Experience with reproducible environments (i.e. JupyterLab)
• Experience with parallel computing (e.g. MPI, Dask)
• Experience working in an open-source development environment.
• Experience working with, extending, and refactoring existing software.

To Apply

This job description is a starting point for our search for a new member to join our small team. You do not need to have all of the desired skills, experience, and qualifications listed above. If you feel excited about this position and feel that you have many of the right qualities, please apply. We would love to hear from you. 

OPeNDAP is an open-source software company with a mission to help serve open-access data to all. To better support this mission, we recognize that social diversity amongst our team is important. We highly encourage applicants of any race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status to apply.

If you would like to be considered for this role, please fill out this form https://forms.gle/bBvQD2seZuMtoNfbA to let us know why you are interested in this position and to send us your CV/resume.