Weather Modeling Engineer II - HPC & WRF Modernization

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research; Boulder (CO); Hybrid; USD 83,000 - 104,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Retirement plan

Leave plans

Tuition assistance

Employee assistance programs

Parental leave

Job summary

UCAR's Environmental Resilience Applications Program (ERAP) at NCAR in Boulder seeks a software engineer to modernize and maintain a WRF workflow. The role focuses on Python/NCL-driven postprocessing, HPC deployment, and cross‑discipline collaboration to deliver accurate forecasts for forecasters and researchers.

The incumbent will upgrade initialization data, refactor legacy plotting, optimize performance, and ensure reliable operation on a shared HPC cluster with on-site and hybrid work

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a computer-related field or equivalent experience.
• 4–8 years of progressively relevant experience in software development.
• Experience with Python and Shell scripting in real-time / HPC environments.

Responsibilities

• Modernize and refactor code to support meteorological workflows.
• Upgrade WRF initialization data and benchmark on HPC clusters.
• Evaluate performance across post-processing workflows.
• Periodically upgrade WRF models for research and operations.
• Troubleshoot model issues as they arise.
• Establish GitHub versioning for software artifacts.
• Identify memory, compute, and workflow bottlenecks for HPC hardware.
• Maintain monitoring tools and real-time dashboards for forecasters.
• Document high-level architecture of the WRF ensemble pipelines.

Skills

Python

Shell scripting

Git

High-Performance Computing

Linux

Time management

Problem solving

Team collaboration

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in a computer-related field

Job description

UCAR's Environmental Resilience Applications Program (ERAP) at NCAR in Boulder seeks a software engineer to modernize and maintain a WRF workflow. The role focuses on Python/NCL-driven postprocessing, HPC deployment, and cross‑discipline collaboration to deliver accurate forecasts for forecasters and researchers.

The incumbent will upgrade initialization data, refactor legacy plotting, optimize performance, and ensure reliable operation on a shared HPC cluster with on-site and hybrid work