Special Information

• This position is an on-site position which requires the incumbent to complete their work primarily at an NAU site, campus, or facility with or without accommodation. Opportunities for remote work are rare.
• This position is subject to the availability of funding. The incumbent is not eligible for Service Professional non-renewal notice, or Classified Staff layoff or recall status.

About the Department/College

Northern Arizona University (NAU) is a Carnegie R1 university with over $77 million dollars in annual research expenditures. The School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS) is known for its student-centered approach and strong emphasis on hands-on learning and research. Faculty and students engage in cutting-edge work in areas like AI, Robotics, and Microelectronics. We offer a variety of undergraduate and graduate degrees, offered by approximately 60 faculty in the school, with roughly 1,200 undergraduate and 500 graduate students. The undergraduate Electrical and Computer Engineering degree programs are ABET-accredited. The department fosters close faculty-student interaction, with a focus on mentoring and collaborative research, partnering with local and national organizations to apply engineering solutions to real-world problems, especially those relevant to Arizona and the Southwest.

About the Position

Faculty within the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems in beautiful Flagstaff, AZ are recruiting a dynamic Research Software Engineer to support multiple research projects focused around developing innovative software products that explore novel concepts in applied computing. The focus of these projects may vary over time as research interests and programs evolve. Examples of primary deliverables currently in development include novel cloud-based cyberinfrastructures that facilitate automation and collaboratio n around the forecasting of infectious disease for local and national communities.

The chosen candidate will work with Principal Investigators (lead research faculty) and senior Engineers in our labs to develop short- and long-term software and web-application development plans for each project, will support architecting solutions to realize those plans, and will help mentor a team of undergraduate and graduate research programmers and scientific assistants to produce key deliverables.

The successful candidate will be comfortable working with novel technologies and with the open-endedness and uncertainty that characterize research and development; and will be expected to contribute to a vibrant atmosphere of innovation and creative problem solving that drives computing research in our labs.

Primary Principal Investigators:
Dr. Joseph Mihaljevic (joseph.mihaljevic@nau.edu),
Dr. Eck Doerry (eck.doerry@nau.edu),

Responsibilities Include

50% - Software Development

• Software architect support: Works with PIs to analyze needs, explore potential of various computing architectures/frameworks, and develop solution architectures.
• Analyze and write software functional and non-functional requirements, design specifications, manuals, and user's guides.
• Develops code, develops modules, performs software unit testing, integrated testing, and usability testing.
• Designs, realizes, and maintains cloud-based cyberinfrastructure on AWS.
• Interacts with NAU’s High Performance Computing team to integrate processing on HPC clusters, as needed.
• Assists in design and implementation of interactive visualizations of data.
• Follows the software development life cycle from early ideation, to prototype development, to production system, and through testing and deployment.
• Monitors for quality assurance, evaluates user feedback, and makes changes/upgrades as needed.
• Establishes and ensures proper codebase management, e.g., using Github.
• Review, modify and rewrite existing software to optimize it or adapt it to fit new requirements.

20% - Research

• Assists in finding novel computing solutions that apply data-intensive research to address real-world problems in innovative ways.
• Stays up-to-date with current trends in the software technologies, computing concepts, and development processes.
• Enforce and maintain technical standards, perform design and code reviews for the development team through implementation of best practices and technical standards.
• Assists PIs in the planning research projects, including visualizing potential computing solutions, estimating realistic implementation timelines and resource/personnel requirements.

20% - Mentoring

• Provides assistance, mentoring, and guidance to junior development staff, in the approach and design of software applications and systems software. This may be hands-on staff training.

5% - Administrative Duties

• Performs administrative functions such as managing AWS accounts, administering backup infrastructure, managing storage solutions, and liaising with NAU ITS teams.

5% - Other

• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in relevant discipline.
• 2 years of research support experience.

*A combination of related education, experience, and training may be used as an equivalent to the above Minimum Qualifications.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in professional software development, including development tools, such as IDEs, version control, and issue tracking.
• Demonstrated experience in full software development life cycle, from conception to algorithm design to deployment and maintenance.
• Experience working with React, HTML5, CSS3 development, NodeJS, and other JavaScript frameworks
• Development of AWS cloud computing infrastructures, including serverless and scalable infrastructures.
• Leadership experience, e.g., mentoring or directing junior software developers and monitoring productivity.
• Some combination of experience in database design (e.g., MySQL/Postgres), geographic information systems, and/or Python programming.

Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities

Knowledge

• Knowledge of software engineering best practices, workflow and version control.
• Knowledge of modern software development tools including bug tracking, source code revision control and automated testing.
• Interest in infectious disease, applied mathematics, and public health.
• Interest and/or experience encouraging participation in STEM across a broad range of backgrounds.

Skills

• Critical thinking skills.
• Programming skills.
• Proficient skills with algorithms and data structures.
• Customer service skills.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

Abilities

• Establishes and maintains effective working relationships.
• Communicates effectively.
• Possesses strong problem solving, organizational, and analytical capabilities.

Compensation

Salary range begins at $67,714. Annual salary commensurate with candidate's qualifications and related experience.

Pre-Employment Check

Northern Arizona University requires satisfactory results for the following: a criminal background investigation, an employment history verification and a degree verification (in some cases) prior to employment. You may also be required to complete a fingerprint background check. Also, as an employer in the state of Arizona, NAU is required to participate in the federal E-Verify program that assists employers with verifying new employees' right to work in the United States.

This position has been identified as a safety/security sensitive position. Therefore, per AZ Revised Statute, Northern Arizona University requires satisfactory results for the following: a criminal background investigation, employment history investigation, degree verification (in some cases) and fingerprinting. If you are applying for a job that requires a CDL, you will be required to register with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse and adhere to the clearinghouse requirements.

Notice of Availability of the Annual Fire and Security Report

Each year Northern Arizona University releases an Annual Security Report. The report is a result of a federal law known as the Clery Act. The report includes Clery reportable crime statistics for the three most recent completed calendar years and discloses procedures, practices and programs NAU uses to keep students and employees safe including how to report crimes or other emergencies occurring on campus. In addition, the Fire Safety Report is combined with the Annual Security Report for the NAU Flagstaff Mountain Campus as this campus has on-campus student housing. This report discloses fire safety policies and procedures related to on-campus student housing and statistics for fires that occurred in those facilities. If you would like a free paper copy of the report, please contact the NAUPD Records Department at (928) 523-8884 or by visiting the department at 525 E. Pine Knoll Drive in Flagstaff.

Immigration Support/Sponsorship

NAU will not provide any U.S. immigration support or sponsorship for this position.

Submit your Application

To apply for this position, please click on the "Apply" button on this page. You must submit your application by midnight of the application deadline.

If you are an individual with a disability and need reasonable accommodation to participate in the hiring process, please contact the Disability Resources Office at 928-523-8773, DR@nau.edu, or PO Box 5633, Flagstaff AZ 86011.