Computer Scientist II

Axiom is seeking candidates to support workflow development activities for the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Seasonal Forecast System (SFS) at the Environmental Modeling Center (EMC). EMC is one of the National Weather Service's (NWS) National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) located at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction (NCWCP) in College Park, MD.

EMC is responsible for developing and transitioning into operation state-of-the-art numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems providing guidance to the NWS weather, sub-seasonal, and seasonal forecasts. Modern systems are based on coupled Earth system models developed collaboratively within NOAA and with other research partners. EMC is involved in all phases of scientific and engineering model development including data ingest, data assimilation, model integration, post-processing, product generation, validation, and verification.

What you will do

Numerical and AI weather prediction (NWP and AIWP) applications use complex end-to-end workflows to drive the modeling systems and generate forecast guidance. The successful candidate will design, develop, optimize, and maintain these workflows running on High-Performance Computing (HPC) and cloud platforms, as part of highly motivated, multidisciplinary teams including software engineers and physical scientists in an Agile environment.

Responsibilities:

• Extend and maintain reusable, robust continuous integration (CI) workflows allowing for the seamless testing of code changes across HPC and cloud platforms for large, parallel applications.
• Develop and maintain workflow features to enable seamless deployment of modeling applications across HPC and cloud platforms, with an emphasis on configurability and reproducibility.
• Contribute to the design and development of new and improved software architecture underpinning NOAA's major operational modeling applications
• Comprehend and adhere to operational computing standards in support of operational code development and delivery, including support for the upcoming transition of operations to the NIMBUS system on Google Cloud Platform.
• Ensure that workflows efficiently utilize computing resources.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams in an Agile development environment to achieve project milestones and deliver high-quality software.
• Follow software development best practices, including by providing robust automated testing and comprehensive documentation.

Qualifications

• Background in Physical Sciences, Computer Sciences, or Mathematics with proven experience in numerical modeling or other scientific software development.
• Strong knowledge of parallel computing, preferably including GPUs. Experience in developing, optimizing, and deploying code for HPC and cloud platforms (preferably including Google Cloud Platform).
• Strong experience with modern continuous integration (CI) tools (especially GitHub Actions & GitLab CI), with a strong preference for candidates having experience with multi-system integration (e.g., self-hosted runners), reusable CI components, and security-aware CI/CD/DevOps best practices.
• Familiarity with modern Fortran, C/C++, MPI, scientific software libraries, and object-oriented programming is strongly preferred.
• Experience with container (Docker, Apptainer/Singularity) development and deployment on HPC and/or cloud platforms.
• Experience with workflow managers (e.g., Rocoto, ecFlow) and job schedulers (e.g., SLURM), and/or strong experience with container orchestration.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to troubleshoot complex software systems.
• Strong experience with Python and Linux shell scripting and automation.
• Experience with version control systems, such as Git/GitHub/GitLab, and working knowledge of principles and best practices of code management and collaboration.
• Experience with package build systems (e.g., CMake) and package management (e.g., Spack, pip) is preferred.
• Working knowledge of LLM-driven code development experience is preferred.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to convey technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments is preferred.

Candidates must be U.S. Citizens or Green Card Holders to qualify (please indicate in your cover letter)

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor's legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)