Part-Time Assistant Programmer

The Pennsylvania State University; State College (Centre County); On-site; USD 78,523; Part time

Job summary

A prestigious university is seeking a part-time programmer to work on an innovative project converting peer-reviewed nutrition literature into actionable recommendations. Responsibilities include managing an ETL pipeline, fine-tuning transformer models for data extraction, and building a service that balances various constraints. The role requires strong experience in Python and NLP/ML engineering. It offers a competitive pay rate of $57/hour for 20 hours a week, fully remote but with office space available if preferred.

Qualifications

• 3+ years professional experience in Python and ML/NLP engineering.
• Strong understanding of development practices including tests and code review.
• Ability to communicate clearly in a remote team setting.

Responsibilities

• Own a PubMed or OpenAlex ETL that normalizes and ingests articles.
• Fine-tune transformer models to extract semantic information.
• Implement and maintain a knowledge graph linked to recommendations.

Skills

Python

Machine Learning (ML)

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Data Engineering

Transformer Models

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Postgres

spaCy

Airflow

Job description

United States, Pennsylvania, University Park

Application Instructions

• CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.
• CURRENT PENN STATE STUDENT (not employed previously at the university) and seeking employment with Penn State, please login to Workday to complete the student application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.
• If you are NOT a current employee or student, please click "Apply" and complete the application process for external applicants.

Job Description and Position Requirements

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering within the College of Engineering is seeking applicants for a part-time programmer.

The Role

Help us build a focused, sharp system that turns peer-reviewed nutrition literature into transparent, evidence-based recommendations. You'll implement the Extract, Transform Load (ETL) pipeline from OpenAlex, fine-tune and wire up transformer models for relation extraction, and ship a production‑grade recommendation/generative layer backed by a provenance‑rich knowledge graph.

What you’ll do

• Stand up and own a PubMed or OpenAlex ETL that ingests open-access articles, normalizes metadata, and keeps our corpus fresh.
• Use and/or fine‑tune transformer models (e.g., BERT variants) to extract semantic triples (like: (ingredient)-[biolink:ameliorates_condition]->(health condition)); build evaluation and error‑analysis loops.
• Implement a ranking layer that blends evidence strength (study design, sample size, effect size) with model confidence.
• Build the recommendation/generative service that balances constraints (evidence score, compatibility, regulatory limits) and exposes a clean API.
• Construct/maintain a knowledge graph that links every recommendation back to source papers (full provenance) and supports plain‑language evidence summaries.
• Collaborate tightly with PI and domain scientists; deliver milestones on a fast, 12‑month pilot timeline.

Core stack we use (and you’re comfortable with)

• Python 3.x; modern NLP/ML (PyTorch or TensorFlow, Hugging Face, scikit-learn); data/ETL tooling (pandas, spaCy, Pydantic, Airflow/Prefect).
• APIs/services: RESTful design, auth, pagination, retries, structured logging, unit/integration tests, CI.
• Storage/search: Postgres + vector/embedding store; graph DB experience welcome.
• DevOps basics: containers, reproducible envs, simple local deploys, secrets management.

Nice to have

• Deep NLP experience (relation extraction, weak supervision, prompt/adapter tuning).
• Semantic KGs (RDF/OWL, Neo4j/graph tooling), ontology work, and/or the Biolink Model.
• Experience with biomedical text corpora and literature mining.
• You’ve shipped scrappy, reliable research‑to‑prod systems before.

What you bring

• 3+ years professional Python and ML/NLP engineering, or equivalent portfolio.
• Strong engineering hygiene (tests, docs, code review) and product sense.
• Clear, direct communication in a remote team.
• Bonus: prior work at the intersection of ML + biosciences/clinical data.

Logistics & pay

• Fully remote (U.S.); office space available at Penn State for hybrid/in‑person if preferred.
• Part‑time at $57/hour, 20 hours/week, 50 weeks. Continuation beyond 50 weeks depends on renewal/next‑round funding.
• Please submit a brief cover letter and resume/CV.
• For more information on restrictions for part‑time remote employment locations: Notice to Out of State Applicants.

Background checks/clearances

Employment with the University will require successful completion of background check(s) in accordance with University policies.

EEO is the law

Penn State is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. If you are unable to use our online application process due to an impairment or disability, please contact 814‑865‑1473.