Senior Eclipse RCP/SWT Desktop Engineer

Katalyst CRO; Plano (TX); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading software development firm in Plano, Texas is seeking a Senior Eclipse RCP/SWT Engineer to design high-performance Java thick client applications. The ideal candidate will have over 10 years of experience in software engineering and at least 7 years focused on building desktop applications using Eclipse RCP. Responsibilities include designing rich UIs, optimizing multi-threaded applications, and collaborating with UX experts. Strong skills in Java, OSGi, and SWT/JFace are essential for this role.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• 7+ years building Java thick client desktop applications with Eclipse RCP.
• Expertise in OSGi and strong SWT/JFace knowledge.
• Advanced Core Java (Java 8+) experience.

Responsibilities

• Design & build rich desktop UIs using Eclipse RCP and SWT/JFace.
• Implement OSGi modular architectures and engineer cross-application behaviors.
• Optimize multi-threaded features and ensure UI responsiveness.
• Collaborate with product and UX for effective interfaces.

Skills

Eclipse RCP

Java

SWT/JFace

Multithreading

Applied Mathematics

Software Design Patterns

OSGi

Education

BS in Computer Science (or related)

Tools

JUnit

SWTBot

Tycho

Maven

Gradle

Job description

Job Description

We’re seeking a UI/UX focused Senior Eclipse RCP / SWT Engineer to design and build high‑performance Java thick client applications using Eclipse RCP, OSGi, SWT, and JFace. You will partner with product, UX, and domain experts to deliver intuitive, robust, and responsive scientific desktop software used by geoscience professionals. The ideal candidate combines deep desktop UI engineering with strong multithreading/concurrency and applied mathematics capable of implementing complex, long running algorithms off the SWT UI thread while maintaining a smooth, accessible user experience.

Responsibilities

• Design & build rich desktop UIs with Eclipse RCP (perspectives, views, editors, commands/handlers, extension points) using SWT/JFace and established UI/UX patterns (MVP/MVC, event‑driven design).
• Implement OSGi modular architectures (bundles, services, dependency management), ensuring clean isolation between components and well defined interfaces.
• Engineer context aware behaviors across the application: understand and extend how actions (e.g., button press) propagate through Eclipse Command/Handler/Context and OSGi Service Registry to deliver predictable, traceable outcomes.
• Build and optimize multi‑threaded features: move long running scientific computations off the UI thread using the Eclipse Jobs API, executors, and background tasks; update UI safely via Display.asyncExec/syncExec.
• Ensure UI responsiveness & performance for large datasets: job scheduling, progress reporting, cancellation, virtualized tables/viewers, and efficient rendering.
• Apply software design patterns and domain‑driven design to keep code modular, testable, and maintainable.
• Collaborate with product and UX to translate scientific/geology workflows into usable, high‑signal interfaces; instrument and iterate based on usability feedback.
• Write clean, testable code with unit tests (e.g., JUnit), UI tests (e.g., SWTBot), and profiling/diagnostics for memory and performance.
• Participate in code reviews, architecture discussions, and CI/CD build pipelines (Tycho/Maven/Gradle as applicable).
• Contribute domain insights to data visualization and computational geometry/mathematics features (e.g., regression, derivatives, geometry operations).

Requirements

• BS in Computer Science (or related) and 10+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• 7+ years building Java thick client desktop applications with Eclipse RCP: plugins/features/products, extension points, p2, perspectives/views/editors, Commands/Handlers/Contexts.
• Expertise in OSGi: bundles, lifecycle, services, dependency injection/management, service tracking, modular isolation.
• Strong SWT/JFace: layouts, events, custom widgets/controls, JFace viewers (Table/Tree), dialogs, wizards, actions.
• Advanced Core Java (Java 8+): concurrency (threads, executors, futures, synchronization), collections, generics, streams, and design patterns (Factory, Strategy, Observer, Command, etc.).
• Proven multithreaded UI experience: delivering long running computations without UI freezes; correct use of the SWT single threaded model and UI thread marshaling.
• Performance & scalability: background jobs, cancellation, progress UI, memory/performance profiling, large dataset handling/virtualization.

Applied Mathematics for Scientific Applications

• Calculus (including derivatives), geometry, statistical regression/line fitting, numerical methods; comfort validating algorithmic correctness and precision.
• Geology/Geoscience domain experience (or demonstrable experience rapidly acquiring complex scientific domains).
• Debugging & diagnostics: event tracing across OSGi/Eclipse contexts, thread dumps, heap/CPU profiling, logging frameworks.

Preferred Qualifications (Nice to Have)

• Experience with computational geometry, coordinate systems, and scientific data visualization in desktop apps.
• Exposure to geospatial/GIS concepts (e.g., projections) and data formats.
• Knowledge of Tycho/Maven RCP build pipelines; p2 repositories, feature/product builds, update sites.
• Experience with SWTBot or similar UI testing frameworks.
• Familiarity with numerical libraries and precision/robustness techniques.
• Cross-language integration (e.g., JNI to C/C++ modules) or Python interop for scientific workflows.