Research Software Engineer for Data Catalogues and Federated Data Infrastructure
The Jülich Centre for Neutron Science – Neutron Methods (JCNS-4) operates at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ) in Garching near Munich a suite of high performance neutron scattering instruments. It provides access to these instruments for scientists from universities and research institutions in Germany and throughout the world. Within the user program more than 1000 scientists visit the MLZ every year to perform experiments in the physical, chemical, biological and materials sciences. In addition, JCNS is actively pursuing a research program in the field of soft matter science and condensed matter physics. We are looking for a Research Software Engineer to join the JCNS cloud infrastructure group. The group develops and operates the infrastructure that connects research data, metadata catalogues, storage, and scientific computing services. This is a position for Task Area 2 in the framework of the DFG-funded project DAPHNE4NFDI, a consortium in Germany’s National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). Within DAPHNE4NFDI, JCNS contributes to making research data from photon and neutron experiments FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.
Your Job
Photon and neutron experiments generate growing volumes of complex scientific data and metadata. Researchers need reliable ways to find these datasets, understand their context, access them securely, and connect them to suitable data analysis environments.
You will develop and operate the MLZ data platform on our on-premises Kubernetes infrastructure based on Red Hat OpenShift. A central part of your work will be developing and integrating the SciCat metadata catalogue and associated microservices to provide a central point of access to MLZ data and metadata. The role combines software engineering, cloud infrastructure, and research data management with close collaboration across large-scale research facilities, universities, and national and European infrastructure initiatives.
List of tasks and responsibilities:
- Develop, operate, and continuously improve SciCat and its associated microservices on our Red Hat OpenShift infrastructure, contributing relevant improvements to upstream open-source projects
- Integrate metadata from instruments, sample databases, proposal systems, electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs), and other relevant sources
- Collaborate with Task Area 3 to connect the data catalogue with storage, computing resources, interactive analysis environments, and scientific workflow services, providing an entry point for launching analyses and recording the associated metadata to ensure provenance and reproducibility
- Develop shared metadata models, machine-readable catalogue interfaces, search endpoints, and mappings to ontologies and terminology services
- Connect the MLZ data catalogue with external catalogues, federated search services, and relevant NFDI and European research data infrastructures
- Collaborate with software engineers, instrument scientists, experimental physicists, and DAPHNE4NFDI partners in interdisciplinary and international open source projects
- Document and communicate results through technical documentation, workshops, project meetings, conferences, and scientific publications
Your Profile
What we’re looking for:
- A master’s degree or diploma in computer science, informatics, physics, mathematics, engineering, or a related discipline
- Practical experience developing and maintaining production-quality software using microservice-based or distributed software architectures
- Experience with collaborative software-development, including version control, code review, automated testing, continuous integration, and continuous delivery
- Experience with containers and cloud-native application deployment on Kubernetes
- The ability to analyze complex technical requirements and translate them into maintainable software solutions
- A collaborative and self-directed working style suited to an interdisciplinary, distributed project
- Very good command of written and spoken English with extensive vocabulary is required (at least B2 level according to the CEFR)
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience with Red Hat OpenShift or a comparable Kubernetes platform
- Practical experience implementing FAIR data principles in research data catalogues or repositories
- Software development experience in Python or other languages relevant to this role
- Previous contributions to open-source software or distributed research-infrastructure projects
Our Benefits for You
- Meaningful tasks: The position offers responsible tasks at the interface between science, administration, business, and politics
- Attractive work environment: Exciting working environment on an attractive research campus, ideally situated close to the city of Munich
- Work-life balance: Optimal conditions for balancing work and private life, as well as a family-friendly company policy. The option of flexible working (in terms of location) is generally available after consultation and in line with upcoming tasks and (on-site) appointments
- Vacation: You will receive 30 days of vacation (depending on the chosen working time model) plus additional days off (e.g. between Christmas and New Year's)
- Flexibility: Flexible working time models, including options close to full-time, allow you to tailor your working hours to suit your individual needs
- Knowledge & further training: Your professional development is important to us – we provide targeted, individual support
- Fair remuneration: Depending on your existing qualifications and the tasks assigned to you, you will be classified in pay grade 13 of the TVöD-Bund (Collective Agreement for the Public Service). All information on the TVöD-Bund collective agreement can be found on the BMI website. The monthly salaries in euros can be found on page 74 of the PDF download
- Additional benefits: Benefit from attractive additional services such as a company pension scheme with employer contribution. In addition to the basic salary, there is an additional year-end bonus under the collective pay agreement amounting to 75% of a monthly salary, as well as capital-forming benefits
- Fixed-term: The position is limited to 2 years
- Support for international employees: Our International Advisory Service makes it easier for international employees to get started
In addition to exciting tasks and a collegial working environment, we offer you much more: https://go.fzj.de/benefits
We welcome applications from people with diverse backgrounds, e.g. in terms of age, gender, disability, sexual orientation / identity, and social, ethnic and religious origin. A diverse and inclusive working environment with equal opportunities in which everyone can realize their potential is important to us.
The following links provide further information on diversity and equal opportunities: https://go.fzj.de/equality and on specific support options for women: https://go.fzj.de/womens-job-journey. International applicants can find more information here: https://go.fzj.de/job-journey-internationals
Index number: 2026T-0852
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