Senior Research Software Engineer Aviation Impact accelerator

Society; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough; Remote; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

The Aviation Impact Accelerator (AIA) at the University of Cambridge is seeking a Senior Research Software Engineer to join our team at Whittle Laboratory in West Cambridge. You will lead efforts to develop scientific software, infrastructure and interactive tools underpinning our research, and to communicate findings to government, industry and the public.

The role spans new tool development, support for analyst-led projects, cloud infrastructure, data pipelines and public-facing web

Qualifications

• Engineering or physical-science background required.
• Experience deploying web services, ideally using AWS.
• Exposure to low-order physical systems modelling preferred.
• Greenfield software development experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead development of scientific software, infrastructure and interactive tools.
• Support analyst-led projects and cloud infrastructure.
• Build and maintain data pipelines and public-facing web applications.

Skills

Python

AWS

Data pipelines

Web services

Software architecture

Education

PhD or MSc in relevant field

Tools

JAX

AWS

Job description

The Aviation Impact Accelerator (AIA) at the University of Cambridge is seeking a Senior Research Software Engineer to join our team at Whittle Laboratory in West Cambridge. As part of this team, you will lead efforts to develop the scientific software, infrastructure and interactive tools that underpin our research and communicate its findings to government, industry and the public.

This is a broad senior engineering role which is technically demanding and intellectually engaging spanning new tool development, support for analyst-led projects, cloud infrastructure, data pipelines and public-facing web applications. We are particularly interested in candidates with an engineering or physical-science background, an understanding of low-order physical systems modelling, and experience deploying and operating web services, ideally using AWS.

The AIA combines physics-based and data-driven modelling to study aviation as an interconnected system. Our software includes modern, typed Python modelling toolboxes and Bilt, an in-house framework for building a causal, composable and unit-aware engineering models, which are deployable to JAX. Much of our development is greenfield, giving team members significant influence over software architecture, engineering practices and technical direction.

The role also offers opportunities to mentor students and colleagues, contribute to reports and publications, and engage with external partners and software contractors where appropriate. We value code quality, testability, automation, and maintainable research software. This role is suitable for engineers looking to deepen their expertise in scientific and data-intensive software while maintaining industry-aligned practices.