SALT Astronomy Software developer

The South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) is the National Facility for Optical and Infrared Astronomy of the National Research Foundation (NRF). Its headquarters are in Cape Town, while its telescopes are at Sutherland in the Northern Cape. Distributed between the two sites, SAAO employs about 130 people, many of them scientists and engineers, and is contracted to operate SALT (the Southern African Large Telescope) on behalf of the international SALT Foundation. SAAO is the premier optical/infrared research facility on the African continent, with global research and outreach collaborations, contributing to SET human capital development for South Africa.

The Astronomy software position supports the SALT Astronomy Operations team to operate, maintain, and develop software for the scientific analysis of observations from the Southern African Large Telescope. We invite applications for the position of SALT Astronomy Software Development as described below:

Duties and Responsibilities will include:

• fault finding and bug fixes.
• routine software maintenance and upgrades of core astronomical SALT software
• Interact with the astronomy staff regarding software issues
• Develop new software per specifications and compliant with standards and procedures
• acceptance testing of software as part of system commissioning
• Contribute to open source astronomical libraries such as astropy
• Personal research time and resources, using SALT and other SAAO facilities, will also be available.

Minimum Requirements:

• PhD in Astronomy, or a related field
• experience in observational astronomy and data reduction
• instrumental, archival, and/or software expertise would be an advantage especially in precision radial velocity measurements.
• Proficient in python and object orientated programming
• Ability to write specifications and design documents
• Must be able to work effectively within a team and on his/her own with minimal supervision.
• Must have good skills in oral and written English.

Desirable requirements:

• Expertise in optical data reduction especially precision radial velocities
• Familiarity with python libraries such as astropy, pandas, flask, matplotlib, and/or bokeh.
• Familiarity with mysql or other relational database software
• Familiarity with javascript and/or java
• Familiarity with using git and GitHub for software revision
• Good experience in fault-finding, instrumentation design, and user interface design
• Experience in an astronomy operations environment
• Development of software for astronomical instruments will be a distinct advantage

The position will initially be for a period until 31 March 2020, with the possibility of extensions thereafter.

The filling of this position will be in line with the NRF’s Employment Equity Policy and Plan

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Interested candidates should send a cover letter and full CV, including 2 letters of reference, to the SAAO Human Resources Manager, Linda Tobin, Address: P O Box 9, Observatory, 7935, phone: 021-4470025; fax: 021-4473639; email: [email protected]

Closing date for applications is 13 August 2017

Correspondence will be conducted with short-listed candidates only.