Research Software Engineer

Society of Research Software Engineering; Greater London; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job description

We’re hiring for 2 x two-year, full-time roles within the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London, funded by the Software Sustainability Institute.

• Research Software Engineer (REF: B04-06999)
• Community Engagement Coordinator (REF: B04-06998)

Both roles will contribute to the Palaeoverse project ‘Converting Users to Contributors: Enabling Sustainable Maintenance and Development of Palaeoverse’.

What is Palaeoverse? Palaeoverse is an organisation aiming to unite the palaeontological community through shared resources, agreed standards, and a collective commitment to improving reproducibility in palaeontological research. The organisation began in 2022 when a group of early-career researchers recognised a common challenge: many of us were independently developing similar workflows for cleaning and preparing palaeontological data due to a lack of standardised tools and protocols, leading to duplicated work that was difficult to reproduce. In response, we came together to develop the palaeoverse R package—a toolkit designed to streamline data preparation and exploration in palaeontological research. Since then, Palaeoverse has evolved into a formally organised initiative with a growing scope. The organisation has expanded into a full software ecosystem, additionally running training workshops, producing community resources, and fostering spaces for networking.

About the project

Key goals include:

• Improving the structure, readability, and maintainability of existing software
• Expanding contributor documentation and guidelines
• Delivering training events in research software development
• Running a mentorship programme for early-career researchers
• Developing a governance model that supports long-term community ownership

The Research Software Engineer and Community Engagement Coordinator will work closely together with the wider Palaeoverse team to deliver these objectives. If you’re passionate about open research, research software sustainability, and community building, we’d love to hear from you!

How to apply

Applications can be submitted from the 9th of January 2026 via UCL’s job search. Deadline for submission of applications is the 18th of January 2026.