Research Software Engineer – Forecast Verification

ECMWF; Reading; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

ECMWF is seeking a Research Software Engineer (A2) to join the Product Development Services Team. You will contribute to modernising the Forecast Verification Software stack, building reusable components within the Earthkit ecosystem, and integrating verification workflows with PPROC.

The role spans developing services, APIs and scalable pipelines for forecast evaluation across multiple forecast ranges. You will collaborate with scientists, software engineers and operational teams to deliver

Qualifications

• Strong Python development skills and experience in scientific software.
• Experience delivering high-quality, reusable software components.
• Familiarity with modern software engineering practices and workflows.
• Experience with cloud-native, containers, or HPC environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain reusable verification software as part of Earthkit.
• Consolidate verification software into a common, maintainable platform.
• Develop, deploy and operate verification services exposed via APIs.
• Collaborate with scientists and engineers to adopt new verification methodologies.
• Evolve the Forecast Verification Platform and related services.

Skills

Python

Software engineering

APIs

High-performance

Education

EQF Level 7+

Tools

Earthkit

PPROC

Job description

Your role

We are looking for a Research Software Engineer (A2) to join the Product Development Services Team within the Development Section of the Forecasts and Services Department.

Forecast verification is fundamental to numerical weather prediction, providing objective evidence of forecast quality, supporting scientific development, operational decision-making and user confidence. As ECMWF continues to evolve its forecasting capabilities, including physics-based numerical prediction systems and emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based forecasting systems, robust, scalable and accessible verification frameworks are essential to evaluate forecast performance, understand model behaviour and support continuous improvement.

You will contribute to the modernisation of ECMWF's Forecast Verification Software stack for medium-range, sub-seasonal and seasonal ensemble predictions using the physics-based Integrated Forecasting System (IFS), the Artificial Intelligence Forecasting System (AIFS) and future hybrid forecasting approaches.

A key objective of this role is to consolidate and evolve existing verification software capabilities across ECMWF into a coherent, reusable and sustainable platform, enabling scientists, product developers, operational teams and external partners to evaluate and compare the performance of a broad range of forecasting systems. A central aspect of this role is the development of verification software as part of ECMWF's Earthkit ecosystem. You will contribute reusable, well-designed and documented software components that can be used across ECMWF and by the wider scientific community. By building verification capabilities within Earthkit, the role will enable collaboration, knowledge sharing and software reuse between ECMWF teams, research groups, Member and Co-operating States, international partners and external users.

Working closely with scientists, software engineers and operational teams across ECMWF, you will design, develop and maintain robust, scalable and user-oriented verification software. You will integrate verification workflows into ECMWF's Pre/Post-Processing application (PPROC), leveraging its operational workflow framework to produce verification products consistently, reproducibly and efficiently at scale. Combining reusable Earthkit components with PPROC operational workflows will enable the transition of innovative verification methodologies into sustainable operational capabilities.

Beyond software development, you will develop, deploy and operate verification services that expose forecast evaluation products, statistics and metadata through modern APIs and service interfaces. These services will enable ECMWF applications, including ecCharts, OpenCharts and future product platforms, as well as external users and partners, to consume verification information in a consistent, scalable and reliable manner.

About the Product Development Services Team

The Product Development Services Team is part of the Development Section within the Forecasts and Services Department. The team develops software and services supporting the production and verification of ECMWF forecast products.

The team develops highly efficient pre/post-processing workflows within ECMWF's Pre/Post-Processing software, providing a common operational framework for generating, managing and delivering forecast products. The team also plays an active role in the development of the Earthkit ecosystem, creating reusable software components and services that support scientific computing, product generation, forecast verification and operational applications.

This team sits at the intersection of developing capabilities and products for ECMWF forecasting systems and therefore works very closely with other sections and teams, such as Production, Innovation Platform and, in particular for this role, with Evaluation Section.

Your responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain reusable forecast verification software as part of ECMWF's Earthkit ecosystem
• Consolidate and modernise existing verification software capabilities across ECMWF, into a common, maintainable and extensible verification platform.
• Contribute to the evolution of Earthkit as a collaborative software ecosystem supporting scientific and operational applications
• Develop, deploy and operate verification services exposing forecast evaluation results, statistics and metadata through APIs and other service interfaces
• Collaborate and support scientists in the transition to new verification methodologies
• Maintain and contribute to the evolution of ECMWF's Forecast Verification Platform
• Collaborate with scientific and operational teams on verification-related activities

What we are looking for

You are:

• Passionate about developing high-quality scientific software with broad scientific and operational impact
• Interested in building software ecosystems that enable collaboration, reuse and innovation
• Motivated to bridge scientific developments with reliable, production-quality software
• Comfortable working in multidisciplinary teams involving software engineers, scientists and operational experts
• Able to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and scientific audiences
• Committed to developing maintainable, robust, reusable and documented software

Your profile

• Advanced university degree (EQF Level 7 or above), or equivalent professional experience, in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, Atmospheric Science, Physics, Data Science or a related discipline

Essential experience and knowledge

• Strong software development skills in Python.
• Experience developing scientific software, data-processing applications or software libraries, with focus on high-performance reusable software components.
• Experience with modern software engineering and development practices.
• Experience with either cloud-native technologies, containers or high-performance computing environments

Desirable experience and knowledge

• Experience with geosciences software
• Experience developing APIs, web services or service-oriented applications
• Experience developing workflow automation or operational data-processing
• Experience with forecast verification methodologies or statistical evaluation

Candidates must be able to work effectively in English. A good knowledge of one of the Centre’s other working languages (French or German) is an advantage.

This role interests you and you meet several, but not all, of the criteria, we still encourage you to apply.

What you can expect

This role offers the opportunity to build a strategic software capability supporting the future of forecast evaluation at ECMWF. Your work will span reusable scientific software within the Earthkit ecosystem, scalable operational workflows powered by PPROC, and production services delivering trusted forecast evaluation information to ECMWF applications and users.

You will help establish a common verification platform that brings together capabilities across ECMWF's forecasting systems and forecast ranges, from medium-range weather prediction through extended-range, sub-seasonal and seasonal forecasting, while supporting the evaluation of emerging AI-based models such as AIFS.

Through reusable software, shared services and collaborative development, your work will contribute to improving the consistency, efficiency and accessibility of forecast verification across ECMWF and its wider community.

About ECMWF

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is a world leader in Numerical Weather Predictions providing high-quality data for weather forecasts and environmental monitoring. As an intergovernmental organisation we collaborate internationally to serve our members and the wider community with global weather predictions, data and training activities that are critical to contribute to safe and thriving societies.

The success of our activities depends on the funding and partnerships of our 35 Member and Co-operating States who provide the support and direction of our work. Our talented staff together with the international scientific community, and our powerful supercomputing capabilities,are the core of a 24/7 research and operational centre with a focus on medium and long-range predictions. We also hold one of the largest meteorological data archives in the world.

Our vision: World-leading monitoring and predictions of the Earth system enabled by cutting-edge physical, computational and data science, resulting from a close collaboration between ECMWF and the members of the European Meteorological Infrastructure, will contribute to a safe and thriving society

Our mission: Deliver global numerical weather predictions focusing on the medium-range and monitoring of the Earth system to and with our Member States

In addition, ECMWF has established a strong partnership with the European Union and has been entrusted with the implementation and operation of the Destination Earth initiative and the Climate Change and Atmosphere Monitoring Services of the Copernicus Programme, as well as being a contributor to the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. Other areas of work include High Performance Computing and the development of digital tools that enable ECMWF to extend provision of data and products covering weather, climate, air quality, fire and flood prediction and monitoring.

ECMWF is a multi-site organisation, with its headquartersin Reading, UK, a data centre in Bologna, Italy, and a large presence in Bonn, Germany as a central location for our EU-related activities.ECMWF is internationally recognised as the voice of expertise in numerical weather predictions for forecasts and climate science. www.ecmwf.int About Copernicus copernicus.eu About Destination Earth destine.ecmwf.int

Other information

Grade remuneration: The successful candidates will be recruited according to the scales of the Co-ordinated Organisations. In addition to basic salary, ECMWF also offers an attractive benefits package. Information about working with us and full details of salary scales and allowances are available on the ECMWF website at: www.ecmwf.int/en/about/jobs/working-ecmwf.

Starting date: asap

Location: Reading, UK or Bonn, Germany (Candidates are expected to relocate to the duty station)

Remote work: As a multi-site organisation, ECMWF has adopted a hybrid organisation model which allows flexibility to staff to mix office working and teleworking. We allow for remote work 10 days/month away from the office, including up to 80 days/year away from the duty station country (within the area of our member states and co-operating states).

Interviews by videoconference (MS Teams) interviews will be conducted in English and are expected to take place approximately a month after the closing date.

Successful applicants and members of their family forming part of their households will be exempt from immigration restrictions.

If you require any special accommodations in order to participate fully in our recruitment process, please let us know.

Who can apply

At ECMWF, we consider an inclusive environment as key for our success. We are dedicated to ensuring a workplace that embraces diversity and provides equal opportunities for all, without distinction as to race, gender, age, marital status, social status, disability, sexual orientation, religion, personality, ethnicity and culture. We value the benefits derived from a diverse workforce and are committed to having staff that reflect the diversity of the countries that are part of our community, in an environment that nurtures equality and inclusion.

Applications are invited from nationals from ECMWF Member States and Co-operating States.

ECMWF Member and Co-operating States are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

In these exceptional times, we also welcome applications from Ukrainian nationals for this vacancy (note: ECMWF will not be able to assist with leaving the country). Applications from nationals from other countries may be considered in exceptional cases.