Data & Pipeline Project Leader, Simons Observatory

POSITION SUMMARY

The Simons Foundation has launched a new computational science organization called the Flatiron Institute. The Flatiron Institute includes three centers — the Center for Computational Astrophysics, the Center for Computational Biology and the Center for Quantum Physics.

The Center for Computational Astronomy (CCA), led by David Spergel, aims to become a focal point for computational astronomy around the world and plans to develop the computational tools needed for calculations, simulations and analyses. In steady state, CCA will be comprised of up to 50–60 researchers.

The Simons Observatory is an international collaboration of approximately 200 scientists and engineers who are building a set of telescopes in the Atacama dedicated to measuring temperature and polarization fluctuations in the microwave background. These measurements should provide our best determination of cosmological parameters, probe the growth and evolution of large-scale structure and have the potential to detect gravitational waves emitted during the first moments of the universe’s expansion. 

The Data & Pipeline Project Leader will report to the director of CCA, David Spergel, and to the project manager for the Simons Observatory, Andrew Bazarko. At the Flatiron Institute, they will be part of an exciting research environment that will include approximately 55 computational astrophysicists and over 100 computational scientists spread between the Scientific Computing Core and the other computational centers.

Primary Responsibilities

The Data & Pipeline Project Leader will be responsible for managing the efforts of 10 software pipeline development scientists to develop, produce and implement the basic framework for converting the petabyte/year of raw data into accurately calibrated maps of the microwave sky.

The Data & Pipeline Project Leader will direct the appropriately phased design, development and deployment of the end-to-end Simons Observatory data pipeline. This work will be within the contexts set by the full Simons Observatory project, other stage-3 and stage-4 cosmic microwave background projects, current and future surveys, existing and anticipated computational resources and the strategic goals of various collaborating agencies.

The Data & Pipeline Project Leader will coordinate the scientific programming, interfaces and communication in the following areas to ensure progress within a unified framework from time ordered data to science:

• data transfer
• low-level time ordered data processing and monitoring
• map making, including interfaces with the science working group pipeline

The Data & Pipeline Project Leader will have overall responsibility for timely delivery of the low-level code software (APIs and other glues, file format I/O, language bindings), supervise interfaces and implementation of a workflow, ensuring that the software written is robust (unit testing, version control, code portability, releasing code versions, working code interfaces), and will be expected to contribute hands on to some or all these tasks.

The Data & Pipeline Project Leader will also manage the software schedule and human-power allocation on this project from software development through implementation. This includes managing software delivery schedules and distributing responsibilities across technical staff in order to ensure the required software for lab and site testing are in place on time.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

Education:

• Ph.D. in computational astrophysics, computer science or related discipline strongly preferred

Requirements:

• Substantial professional experience with object-oriented software development and experience building large software projects in a leadership role
• Experience writing efficient APIs for low-level processing
• Knowledge of software engineering practices for working in groups, including software development life cycles, coding standards, code review and version control systems
• Proficiency in Linux, Python and C/C++
• Experience running software and/or familiarity with HPC/HTC environments
• Strong professional communication skills and a demonstrated commitment to customer service
• This position will require some travel to help coordinate efforts and partnering institution