Two Senior RSE posts available at UCL ARC

By Jonathan Cooper, on 27 October 2022

The UCL Centre for Advanced Research Computing (ARC) is recruiting for two permanent Senior RSE members, with a closing date of 6th November 2022. One post has a focus on supporting UCL East, while the other is intended to be more teaching-focused, but any individual matching the job description is encouraged to apply. The most important attribute is an enthusiasm for reproducible, reliable and sustainable computational research!

ARC is UCL’s centre for digital research infrastructure and innovation: the software, supercomputers, data, and skills that underpin computational science and digital scholarship across the college. We are an innovative hybrid: a professional services department that delivers reliable and secure infrastructure and services to UCL research groups, and a laboratory for research and innovation in the application of advanced computational and data-intensive research methods, working in partnership with academics from all fields.

You will design, extend, refactor, and maintain scientific software in all subject areas, providing expert software engineering consulting services to world-leading research teams, training researchers in programming best practices, and working with scientists and scholars to build software to meet new research challenges. Whether this means using Python to build up a database of ancient Sumerian writings, parallelising Fortran codes for surface catalysis simulations, analysing live healthcare data within hospitals, or creating an MPI-distributed particle filter for data assimilation in Julia, we do it all. With such a varied job we don’t expect our candidates to know it all from the start. It is an excellent opportunity to develop new skills, spending time to study both the research areas we support and the specialist technologies applied.

The team is friendly and diverse, currently with over 45 research technology professionals collaborating on research projects and teaching. All our positions are permanent, on open-ended contracts, and enjoy good opportunities for personal development and career progression within the group, in both technical and managerial tracks. We support a range of flexible working options, including part-time appointments at all levels.

For more details of the vacancies and to apply check out the full adverts linked above. The closing date will be 6th November 2022, with interviews taking place using Microsoft Teams or in person between 17-25 November. The salary range is from £47,414 – £55,805 per annum.

Further vacancies across all ARC’s professions will be coming soon!

Hack the (ARC) Teaching workshop

By ucasper, on 4 July 2022

Two weeks ago (20th – 23rd June) we ran an internal workshop in our group to reflect about our teaching activities. As any good workshop, it also included a fun hack day at the end to work on pet projects or ideas that we haven’t had the time to work on it before. This is a summary of these four days and a reflection for the future.

The workshop was set with two main purposes: review all the teaching activities we are involved, and learn some techniques to become better teachers. The workshop was attended by roughly 8 people every session, this contributed to allow everyone to participate. The event was fully hybrid, with roughly a 50-50% participation of people joining physically and remotely (the trains and tube strike shifted the participation towards a 30-70% towards the end of the week).  Thanks to the big screen and the semi-separated areas we have in our collaboration space, together with how the workshop was run with smaller physical and virtual small groups, contributed to a nice flow of the workshop.

Each day of the workshop was broken into two 2-hour blocks, one in the morning from 10:00 to 12:00 and one in the afternoon form 14:00 to 16:00. This helped to disconnect a bit, catch up with other commitments or have time to enjoy lunch in the park while recharging our solar batteries.

In terms of tooling, we used MS Teams as the conferencing tool (our calendars and the big screen are linked to it) – we also explored the breakout rooms feature it provides; HackMD and Etherpad for note-taking; Google’s Jamboard for collaboratively moving cards in a digital medium; IdeaBoardz to collect feedback; and tried (with only partial success) Visual Studio Code’s Live Share to pair-program during the hack day.

Now that the logistics and tooling has been explained, let’s dive into the content of the workshop.

The workshop started with a short review of the Carpentries instructor training lessons. That workshop lasts two full days, and this session lasted only two hours. Therefore, many things were not covered (like practising the teaching), however, we covered some basics about how learning works and how to create a positive learning environment. As any Carpentries workshop, they are full of activities and discussions, and we had good and interesting discussions. The afternoon of that day, we spend it discussing a set of uncomfortable scenarios that may happen during a teaching activity. These scenarios were created by Yanina Bellini Saibene for Metadocencia and translated by J.C Szamosi. They are a very useful resource to explore before they manifest in a real situation. The scenarios were distributed between the different small groups and then shared with the bigger group our suggested actions. Of course, sharing it in the bigger group was also a source of new point of views and ideas. We highly recommend doing this exercise to everyone who takes part in any teaching activity! The day finished with a review of the Science of Learning paper. As with the previous exercise, we distributed the sections across us and discuss it first in small groups and then as a whole. This is a nice quote about the paper from Sarah in our team:

I want to print this out and stick it all over my office so I can see it whenever I teach.

The second day was focused on our teaching activities and an overview of Submitty, the autograding tool we use in a couple of master courses we teach. We started with a set of lightning talks (aiming for 1 minute each, but all of us overran a bit) for each teaching activity we are involved in. Each talk has to describe the teaching activity with its topics, the audience to whom it is aimed to, the format, what is going well and what can be improved, and finish it with the challenges presented for next year – all that in one minute! We had 13 talks, some of these talks are from courses or workshops we run once a year, others are about courses that happen multiple times. Two of them were from the UKRI Data Science Training in Health and Bioscience (DaSH) projects we are involved with: IDEAS and Learn to Discover. The last one was a short summary of the teaching activities from our friends at Digital Education. The afternoon was focused on Submitty. First with an overview of how the system looks from the different point of views (student and instructor) and then how to set up the exercises. We completed the day with an exercise about thinking how to plan the autograding of two questions from past assignments. The main conclusion of this exercise was that for autograding to work, we need to be more specific on what we ask the students. This, however, may have its disadvantages as it limits the freedom of how the students may approach a problem.

The third day was an ABC Learning Design workshop led by Nataša Perović from UCL’s Office of the Vice Provost Education & Student experience. The workshop starts with an overview of the different learning activities types as described in Diana Laurillard’s work “Teaching as a design science”. We spent the practical side of the workshop, focusing on three of our courses. It was a very useful exercise that we should do more frequently to keep improving and fine-tuning our courses. In the afternoon, we learnt how to migrate our notes from Jamboard into the Learning designer tool from UCL’s Knowledge Lab at IOE. One cool feature that Nataša demonstrated to us is how our Learning Design structure can be exported into Moodle.

The last day was the hack day. We have a collection of mini-projects that we would like to work on, but that normally get postponed till we have the time… Well, finally the time arrived! We tackled four of these projects, two were completed quite quickly, and the other two got started (and that’s sometimes the harder bit!) and hopefully the inertia keeps them moving to a complete state soon. One project that involved an analysis of students grades included a good discussion at the start about the ethics and privacy of the project. This helped to make some decisions of which dataset we were going to use (e.g., the anonymous dataset provided by Moodle before the marks get released), and future ideas about how to clarify to the students how the assignments get graded anonymously.

That was how we’ve spent four days last week learning how to improve our teaching, reflecting on what we’ve done so far and planning what we can do to have better courses in the future. After the positive feedback and seeing how useful a focus week without other distractions can be, we may make this a recurrent annual activity!

Further expansion of UCL’s RSE group, with permanent roles at assistant through senior levels

By Jonathan Cooper, on 31 May 2022

The UCL Research Software Development Group is again looking for new RSE members at 3 grades up to senior, with a new ‘assistant’ role suitable for applicants straight out of undergraduate degrees. We are planning to appoint at least 4 new staff, ideally more, depending on the strength of the field.

TL;DR: Apply via the UCL jobs system before the end of Monday 13th June 2022! Ensure you state in your application which grade you are applying for.

The group, founded in 2012, was the first of its kind, and is one of the leading university-based research programming groups in the UK. We work across college developing high-quality software, collaborating with world-leading scientists, engineers and scholars from all research domains, within UCL and beyond. Whether this means using Python to build up a database of ancient Sumerian writings, parallelising Fortran codes for surface catalysis simulations, analysing live healthcare data within hospitals, or creating an MPI-distributed particle filter for data assimilation in Julia, we do it all. Given the variety of areas in which we work, and the regular turnover of new projects, we welcome a wide range of backgrounds and technical skill sets and support staff to learn on the job. Experience in Django, high-performance computing or “ML Ops” would be a bonus, but if the general job description matches your profile do not hesitate to apply – all skill sets are welcome. The most important attribute is an enthusiasm for reproducible, reliable and sustainable computational research!

The team is friendly and diverse, currently with over 35 members. All our positions are permanent, on open-ended contracts, and enjoy good opportunities for personal development and career progression within the group, in both technical and managerial tracks. We support a range of flexible working options, including part-time appointments at all levels.

For more details of the vacancy and to apply check out the full advert. Note that job descriptions for all 3 grades are given, and you should state in your application which you consider best fits you; the depth of interview will be selected accordingly. The closing date is 13th June 2022, with interviews taking place using Microsoft Teams around 2 weeks later. The salary range is from £29,802 to £53,757 per annum depending on grade.

Recruiting a dedicated RSE for open-source image-guided surgery tools

By Jonathan Cooper, on 27 May 2022

UCL’s Research Software Development Group is strengthening its expertise in medical imaging through a new joint post with the Wellcome / EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences (WEISS). WEISS is located at Charles Bell House in London, and is well supported by state-of-the-art computational facilities and surgical laboratories. Members of WEISS collaborate with world-leading centres such as the UCL Centre for Medical Image Computing (CMIC), the Institute of Healthcare Engineering (IHE) and the Division of Surgical and Interventional Science.

This Research Software Engineer role is available at standard or senior level depending on your knowledge and experience. You will support the development, maintenance, and dissemination of open-source software tools to accelerate research and create clinical impact in image guided surgery. Until May 2024 the work will focus on further development of the SciKit-Surgery libraries. SciKit-Surgery aims to support researchers globally working on applications in image guided surgery. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to create novel open-source software libraries. The exact nature of the libraries may change based on research priorities but includes areas such as hardware accelerated deep learning, novel visualisation and user interface design, computer vision, and scientific education and outreach. You will also contribute to publications in international journals and conferences.

There are good opportunities for personal development and career progression within the group, in both technical and managerial tracks. The role includes time to study the research areas with which we work, and the specialist technologies applied in digital research. Funding for training and conference travel is also readily available.

For more details check out the formal advert and job specification. The closing date is 19th June 2022, with interviews later in June/July (exact dates TBC). This position is permanent (on an open-ended contract), with salary negotiable up to £53,757. Part-time applicants are welcome (unfortunately it’s only the small print of the formal ad that mentions this!) and various forms of flexible working are available.

UCL’s Medical Imaging Research Software Group is growing again

By Jonathan Cooper, on 7 February 2022

In 2019 the Research Software Development Group launched an exciting new collaboration with the Centre for Medical Imaging Computing (CMIC) to develop services for and support researchers across the institution who are working with medical research data sets, particularly imaging data. This sub-group, branded as the UCL Medical Imaging Research Software Group, has been so successful that we are again looking for new staff to expand our activities: collaborating on more research projects, and extending support to new areas such as pathology data and more general microscopy.

There are good opportunities for personal development and career progression within the group, in both technical and managerial tracks. The role includes time to study the research areas with which we work, and the specialist technologies applied in digital research. Funding for training and conference travel is also readily available.

For more details check out the formal advert and job specification. The closing date is 27th February 2022, with interviews in March (exact dates TBC). This position is permanent (on an open-ended contract), with salary negotiable up to £48,167.

More entry & senior level RSE posts created at UCL

By Jonathan Cooper, on 20 December 2021

The UCL Research Software Development Group is again looking for new RSE members at either entry or senior level. We are planning to appoint at least 2 new staff, ideally many more, depending on the strength of the field.

TL;DR: Apply via the UCL jobs system before the end of Sunday 9th January 2022!

The group, founded in 2012, was the first of its kind, and is one of the leading university-based research programming groups in the UK. We work across college developing high-quality software, collaborating with world-leading scientists, engineers and scholars from all research domains, within UCL and beyond. Whether this means using Python to build up a database of ancient Sumerian writings, parallelising Fortran codes for surface catalysis simulations, analysing live healthcare data within hospitals, or creating an MPI-distributed particle filter for data assimilation in Julia, we do it all. Given the variety of areas in which we work, and the regular turnover of new projects, we welcome a wide range of backgrounds and technical skill sets and support staff to learn on the job. Experience in health data science, high-performance computing or “ML Ops” would be a bonus, but if the general job description matches your profile do not hesitate to apply – all skill sets are welcome. The most important attribute is an enthusiasm for reproducible, reliable and sustainable computational research!

The team is friendly and diverse, currently with over 30 members. All our positions are permanent, on open-ended contracts, and enjoy good opportunities for personal development and career progression within the group, in both technical and managerial tracks. We support a range of flexible working options, including part-time appointments at either level.

For more details of the vacancy and to apply check out the full advert. Note that job descriptions for both grades are given, and you should state in your application which you consider best fits you; the depth of interview will be selected accordingly. The closing date is 9th January 2022, with interviews taking place using Microsoft Teams during the week commencing 24th January. The salary range is from £36,770 to £53,757 per annum depending on grade.

Entry and Senior level RSE posts available at UCL

By Jonathan Cooper, on 1 October 2021

The UCL Research Software Development Group is again looking for new RSE members at either entry or senior level. We are hoping to appoint at least 2 new staff, possibly more, depending on the strength of the field.

The group, founded in 2012, was the first of its kind, and is one of the leading university-based research programming groups in the UK. We work across college developing high-quality software, collaborating with world-leading scientists, engineers and scholars from all research domains, within UCL and beyond. Whether this means using Python to build up a database of ancient Sumerian writings, parallelising Fortran codes for surface catalysis simulations, analysing live healthcare data within hospitals, or designing and building a big data image processing library in C++11 and Python, we do it all. Given the variety of areas in which we work, and the regular turnover of new projects, we welcome a wide range of backgrounds and technical skill sets. The most important attribute is an enthusiasm for reproducible, reliable and sustainable computational research!

The team is friendly and diverse, currently with 30 members. All our positions are permanent, on open-ended contracts, and enjoy good opportunities for personal development and career progression within the group, in both technical and managerial tracks. We support a range of flexible working options, including part-time appointments at either level.

For more details of the vacancy and to apply check out the full advert. Note that job descriptions for both grades are given, and you should state in your application which you consider best fits you; the depth of interview will be selected accordingly. The closing date is 17th October 2021, with interviews taking place using Microsoft Teams (dates TBC). The salary range is from £36,770 to £53,757 per annum depending on grade.

How to get started with HPC and AI in your research

By Anastasis A Georgoulas, on 28 September 2021

The Tech Socials are back after our summer break, this time with a twist. For September’s social, we decided to follow up on a SeptembRSE event with our own discussion.

The topic was how to get started with technologies like high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. The panel members came from UCL’s Centre for Advanced Research Computing (ARC), research institutes in molecular biology and sociology, as well as industry. We wanted a range of perspectives, and we think we got it!

There’s lots to talk about on this topic and the discussion proved that, as we moved away from practical tips (such as keeping in mind the scale of your data and workloads) to consider the broader context. We covered policy issues, like the availability of seed funding, ideas for tackling the “skills gap” that researchers and students have to overcome, the importance of wrapping your head around what is possible to do with new technologies, all the way to the right attitude, and how technologists can more efficiently communicate with researchers in the social sciences and humanities (hint: some humility is advised).

If this sounds interesting, do watch the recording (unfortunately missing the first few minutes of introductions!). We are still exploring how ARC can best serve UCL, so get in touch if you think we can work together – you can find out more about what we do on the Research Programming Hub pages until the website reflects our change to ARC.

Thank you to all panel and audience members for their contributions!

UCL’s Centre for Advanced Research Computing is looking for another web development specialist

By Jonathan Cooper, on 24 September 2021

The UCL Research Software Development Group, founded in 2012, was the first of its kind, and is one of the leading university-based research programming groups in the UK. We work across college developing high-quality software, collaborating with world-leading scientists, engineers and scholars from all research domains, within UCL and beyond. Whether this means using Python to build up a database of ancient Sumerian writings, parallelising Fortran codes for surface catalysis simulations, creating an online system to develop and evaluate models of heart cells, analysing live healthcare data within hospitals, or designing and building a big data image processing library in C++11 and Python, we do it all. Given the variety of areas in which we work, and the regular turnover of new projects, we welcome a wide range of backgrounds and technical skill sets. The most important attribute is an enthusiasm for reproducible, reliable and sustainable computational research!

In 2020 we created a new role within the group for a Research Web Application Developer and are now seeking to expand this sub-team due to ongoing growing demand – ever more projects are requiring research software to be deployed as interactive web applications. We are particularly seeking a front-end web developer able to produce both attractive and functional solutions, but a desire to engage deeply with the research community is key – we work with people, not requirements specifications.

You will join a growing team that is friendly and diverse, with around 30 members currently. All our positions are permanent, on open-ended contracts, and enjoy good opportunities for personal development and career progression within the group, in both technical and managerial tracks.

For more details and to apply check out the full advert. The closing date is 10th October 2021, with interviews taking place using Microsoft Teams from 27th October. The salary range is from £36,770 to £48,167 per annum depending on experience.

Join UCL’s Medical Imaging Research Software Group!

By Jonathan Cooper, on 24 July 2021

In 2019 the Research Software Development Group launched an exciting new collaboration with the Centre for Medical Imaging Computing (CMIC) to develop services for and support researchers across the institution who are working with medical research data sets, particularly imaging data. This sub-group, branded as the UCL Medical Imaging Research Software Group, has been so successful that we are now looking for new staff to expand our activities: collaborating on more research projects, and extending support to new areas such as pathology data and more general microscopy.

There are good opportunities for personal development and career progression within the group, in both technical and managerial tracks. The role includes time to study the research areas with which we work, and the specialist technologies applied in digital research. Funding for training and conference travel is also readily available.

For more details check out the formal advert and job specification. The closing date is 22nd August 2021, with (online) interviews in early September (exact dates TBC). This position is permanent (on an open-ended contract), with salary negotiable up to £47,256.