Research and Development Engineer - LIGO

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:

• CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.

• CURRENT PENN STATE STUDENT (not employed previously at the university) and seeking employment with Penn State, please login to Workday to complete the student application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.

• If you are NOT a current employee or student, please click “Apply” and complete the application process for external applicants.

Approval of remote and hybrid work is not guaranteed regardless of work location. For additional information on remote work at Penn State, see Notice to Out of State Applicants.

JOB DESCRIPTION AND POSITION REQUIREMENTS:

The Eberly College of Science, Department of Physics at The Pennsylvania State University is seeking to fill one Part Time Research Engineer position in the Penn State LIGO group. In this position you will report to Dr. Chad Hanna and your responsibilities will include software and systems engineering to work on the Scalable Infrastructure for Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (SCIMMA) project. The goal for the project is to provide the infrastructure and data services needed for groups to effectively receive notice of astrophysical detections; analyze and exchange data; and request follow-up observations for astrophysical phenomena.  

The software and systems engineer works in the context of the project’s agile development effort to both expand the infrastructure and to ensure continuity of operations of the infrastructure. The engineer is a member of a small team seeking to satisfy the needs of a broad community.  The project is agile and requires the ability to work generally in all the technical areas of the project, using intuition about the astrophysical community's needs.  

The engineer for this position will have initial responsibilities for an overview of operations, AWS administration, Information security, and web presence, but needs to take on assignments as the project evolves.

Diverse skills are required, including knowledge and skills related to

• Amazon AWS infrastructure, compute, data and related technical aspects. 
• The terraform configuration language.
• Python Programming skills. 
• Relational database administration skills.
• Knowledge of the kafka publish-subscribe system.
• Knowledge of the principles of identity management.
• Knowledge of information security planning, and information security implementation
• Agile operations and development practices
• Cost management skills.

The Pennsylvania State University is committed to and accountable for advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability in all of its forms. We embrace individual uniqueness, foster a culture of inclusion that supports both broad and specific diversity initiatives, leverage the educational and institutional benefits of diversity in society and nature, and engage all individuals to help them thrive. We value inclusion as a core strength and an essential element of our public service mission.

CAMPUS SECURITY CRIME STATISTICS:

University Park, PA