Senior Data Scientist/Senior Research Software Engineer

Society of Research Software Engineering; Greater London; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

The Alan Turing Institute in London invites applications for a role within the Research Engineering Group to turn complex data challenges into usable software tools and services for clients across industry, government, and beyond.

The role emphasizes leading projects, mentoring colleagues, and delivering robust, reproducible analytics and software across diverse domains. This position offers opportunities to work with state-of-the-art computing and cloud platforms.

Qualifications

• Experience in both programming and advanced statistical or numerical methods.
• Fluency in one or more modern programming languages used in data science and AI.
• Experience delivering technical research engineering work under at least one of the areas in Fundamental Research, Defence and Security, Environment and Sustainability, or a related area in National Resilience.
• Demonstrated ability to lead one’s own work independently and mentor others.

Responsibilities

• Apply state-of-the-art data science and AI techniques to problems faced by clients.
• Collaborate with researchers to develop and maintain high-quality software embodying research outputs.
• Present, disseminate and explain work via reports and well-documented software packages.
• Lead 1-2 research projects or service areas with junior team members.
• Support senior team in scoping new technical projects with oversight.
• Develop new projects and ways of working with colleagues and researchers.
• Coach/mentor junior colleagues and provide expert technical guidance.

Skills

Programming languages

Data analysis

Job description

The Institute’s Research Engineering Group work to realise cutting edge research as professionally usable software tools and to apply these to address real-world data science and modelling challenges.

The Group’s staff are research software engineers and research data scientists. We note the considerable overlap between these emerging roles and embrace the breadth of interdisciplinary skills and diversity of approaches entailed in these fields. We are open to candidates with either a Research Data Science or Research Software Engineering background. The successful candidate will be appointed to the role that best aligns with their skills, experience and interests.

Role purpose

In contrast to traditional research careers, we are committed expert collaborators, who join research teams to further the Institute’s challenges. We collaborate with scholars across the Institute’s research community to enhance the applicability of research for particular problems. We work with clients in industry, government and the third sector to turn their data challenges into research questions. We value expertise across many domains, with current members of the Group having backgrounds in psychology, mathematics, digital humanities, and other areas. We rely on this diversity to design tools, practices, and systems to harness the power of data science around the world.

We create software that implements research and use it to analyse client data in a readable, reliable, and reproducible fashion. We present conclusions of research and analysis to the research community and clients through presentations,research papers,blog posts, interactive data visualisations andopen-source software packages. We work with state-of-the-art, high-performance computing and cloud platforms to realise collaborators’ data science and artificial intelligence research at scale.

Senior team members are responsible for leading and managing the work of the team and interfacing with external PIs and collaborators. They are able to lead efforts in a hands-on manner and mentor others in their work. They have deep technical (algorithmic methods, computational tools etc) expertise in multiple areas and able to force multiply the work of others and collaborate with people outside the team to deliver projects and services that fit within the existing scope of the Institute.

How you will make an impact

• Apply state-of-the-art and novel data science and artificial intelligence techniques emerging from the Institute and elsewhere to problems faced by the Turing’s clients.
• Collaborate with research colleagues to develop and maintain high-quality, well-tested software embodying research outputs.
• Present, disseminate and explain our work via presentations, reports, and well-documented software packages.
• Contribute to the life of the Institute and support its community:
• Working under clear guidance, is responsible for the delivery of 1-2 research projects or service areas involving one or two additional team members on a routine basis, ensuring successful outcomes, liaising with clients and colleagues to understand and prioritise goals, balancing client value with outputs, and promoting the project or service across the institute.
• Support a more senior member of the team in scoping new technical projects, making recommendations or suggestions as needed in this process and scoping projects with oversight from the more senior team member.
• Develop new projects and ways of working in conjunction with colleagues, authoring research proposals and agreeing involvement for the group in activities across the institute.
• Ability to mentor and support junior colleagues and provide expert technical support and guidance.

About you

• Relevant industry or academic experience (for instance pursuing a PhD) in a field with significant use of both computer programming and advanced statistical or numerical methods.
• Fluency in one or more modern programming languages used in research in data science and artificial intelligence.
• An understanding of the importance of good practices for producing reliable software and reproducible analyses.
• Experience delivering technical research engineering work under at least one of the areas in Fundamental Research, Defence and Security, Environment and Sustainability, or a related area in National Resilience.
• Demonstrable experience of managing challenging stakeholder relationships and resolving conflict effective.
• Ability to lead one’s own work independently, including planning and execution, and to collaborate productively as part of a team.
• Demonstrated enthusiasm and ability to rapidly assimilate new computational and mathematical ideas and techniques on the job and apply them successfully.
• Experience managing, structuring, analysing and visualising research data and the results of computational experiments.
• Evidence of the ability to coach/mentor others or act as “buddy” providing advice, guidance, and feedback to help team members work more effectively.

Please see the job description for a full breakdown of the role, person specification and application procedure.