Job Description

By 2050, the planet could be using twice as much electricity compared to today. Are you interested in contributing and helping to shape the future of the world\'s energy? If so, read on.

Fusion, the process that powers the Sun and Stars, is one of the most promising options for generating the cleaner, carbon-free energy that our world badly needs.

UKAEA leads the way in realizing fusion energy, partnering with industry and research for groundbreaking advancements. Our goal is to bring fusion electricity to the grid, supported by tomorrow\'s power stations. In pursuit of our mission, UKAEA embraces core values: Innovative, Committed, Trusted, and Collaborative."

As an employee of UKAEA you will benefit from:

• Outstanding defined benefit pension scheme, details of which can be found at the end of this advert.
• Corporate bonus scheme up to 7% and a Relocation allowance (if eligible).
• Flexible working options including family friendly policies.
• Employee Assistance Programme and trained Mental Health First Aiders,
• Emergency paid leave, Generous annual leave allowance (30.5 days) increased with length of service,
• Wide range of career development opportunities
• A vibrant culture committed to being fully inclusive

Who are we looking for?

Are you interested in applying your computational skills to a next generation of plasma physics and engineering codes? Could you help us solve fusion\'s most important problems?

We are currently seeking someone who is passionate about writing performant, well designed and rigorously tested scientific software for HPC. This role involves solving a combination of maths, physics, and computing problems alongside a dedicated multi-disciplinary team. As a key expert on your projects, you bring in-depth expertise to the table. You will give input in planning, report to stakeholders and offer guidance to more junior teammates.

Your experience will place you somewhere between numerical plasma physicist (or related fields e.g. CFD) and C++ expert, perhaps from the games, finance or engineering industries. You will bring strong skills associated with writing performance critical code, ideally with a background in GPU programming. Making numerically robust, user-friendly software with modern open-source practices is second nature to you. As this is a senior role you will be comfortable teaching others with complementary backgrounds, whilst being eager and open in your own inter-disciplinary development. Knowledge of any of the following is also of great benefit: finite elements; SYCL; MPI; computational fluid dynamics; Monte Carlo particle methods; code generation; uncertainty quantification; and surrogates.

If you are a talented scientific software developer who is passionate about solving difficult problems with the biggest supercomputers around and looking for an exciting new challenge, we encourage you to apply for this role

What will you be responsible for?

• Design, implement, optimise and deliver actionable software for tokamak design.
• Research cutting edge numerics and computational frameworks, and integrate them into new and existing Software.
• Support and provide technical leadership to physicists, engineers and managers.
• Act as key resource on projects of moderate scale and/or complexity Perform business development activities including networking and writing bids.

We are flexible on the working hours and open for Part time workers as well.

Qualifications

Essential skills, experience and competence required

• A doctorate degree in a computational, mathematical, or physical science discipline, or equivalent experience in commercial or research settings.
• Demonstrable expertise in a compiled-level language (e.g., C++, Fortran, C, Rust) or advanced scripting language (Julia, R, Swift Parallel Scripting).
• Experience in agile project management and practical software development practices.
• Strong mathematics foundation, particularly in numerical analysis, evidenced by publications or contributions to relevant software libraries.
• Expertise in developing and implementing verification and validation strategies, with the ability to assess new algorithms for fusion-based codes.
• Significant experience in parallel programming techniques (e.g., MPI, OpenMP), including design, construction, and use of codes at petascale and beyond.

Desirable skills, experience and competence

• Experience writing SYCL code or equivalent performance portability framework.
• Familiarity with and experience in the use of either or both commercial (e.g. ANSYS, CATIA) or open (e.g MOOSE, GMSH, Nekar ) software packages supporting engineering design.
• An interest and knowledge of Uncertainty Quantification and its impact on design solutions.

Additional Information

We welcome applications from under-represented groups, particularly individuals from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and women. Our Executive team, supported by our \'Equality, Diversity and Inclusion\' (EDI) Partner and Inclusion Ambassadors, actively promotes EDI and takes steps to increase diversity within our organization. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.

Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.

All employees at the UK Atomic Energy Authority must complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) and other appropriate security checks, including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions.

For applicants applying from outside the United Kingdom or those who have spent time outside the UK in the last five years, please visit the following link for information on criminal records checks. If your country of residence or previous residence is not listed on the website or if the UK Government does not have information on obtaining a criminal records check from that state, we regret to inform you that we cannot process your application.

UK Atomic Energy Authority