Part-Time Research Software Engineer — MDAnalysis Open Source

King's College London; City of Westminster; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 50,000; Part time

Job summary

King's College London seeks a part-time Research Software Engineer to maintain and extend the MDAnalysis library, focusing on release management, reducing technical debt, and ensuring interoperability with major molecular simulation engines.

The role delivers improvements to the core library, User Guide, and ecosystem, while auditing CI/CD pipelines, updating tests, and supporting the MDAnalysis community across a globally distributed team.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent experience in research software engineering.
• Strong Python proficiency with NumPy/SciPy.
• Experience in software engineering practices: VCS, CI/CD, tests.
• Experience contributing to OSS: code reviews, release management.
• Ability to write clear technical docs.
• Strong communication in distributed international team.

Responsibilities

• Maintain the core MDAnalysis library and User Guide.
• Develop support for new trajectory file formats (BCIF/MMCIF, Desmond).
• Modernise the test suite and audit CI/CD pipelines.
• Support the MDAKits package ecosystem and documentation.
• Review community pull requests to improve review cycles and contributor retention.
• Improve the MDAnalysis UserGuide and tutorial infrastructure.

Skills

Python programming

NumPy/SciPy

CI/CD & testing

Git & GitHub

Open-source development

Documentation

Distributed teamwork

Education

PhD in computational chemistry/physics or related field

Tools

Git

CI/CD

Automated testing

Open-source projects

Job description

King's College London seeks a part-time Research Software Engineer to maintain and extend the MDAnalysis library, focusing on release management, reducing technical debt, and ensuring interoperability with major molecular simulation engines.

The role delivers improvements to the core library, User Guide, and ecosystem, while auditing CI/CD pipelines, updating tests, and supporting the MDAnalysis community across a globally distributed team.