Data-Acquisition Software Developer

About us

At CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. Using the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments, they study the basic constituents of matter - fundamental particles that are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives physicists clues about how particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature. 

Job description

The ATLAS data-acquisition system is a mission-critical quasi-realtime heterogeneous computing infrastructure composed of thousands of servers interconnected by high-performance networks.

The selected candidate will join the Dataflow team, contributing to the evolution and upgrade of the distributed data-conveyance software for the next-generation system.

The Dataflow subsystem is in charge of transferring and aggregating the detector data as well as distributing them to a computer farm. Selected data are then formatted, compressed, and transferred to permanent storage.

The Dataflow infrastructure consists of several in-house software components and off-the-shelf storage hardware.

The High Luminosity LHC upgrade will required the Dataflow system to deal with a 10-fold increase in data rates and throughput. Novel, efficient, and clever software solutions will be required to meet this challenge.

The selected candidate will become part of a skilled team of software experts providing essential software for the ATLAS experiment. He/She will be responsible for developing reliable and efficient multi-threaded distributed C++ software for the ATLAS data-acquisition system.

He/She will contribute to the assessment and selection of novel software and hardware technologies capable of meeting performance requirements. The selected candidate will collaborate with team members to analyze and profile distributed software performance, seeking solutions to achieve the required throughput performance, also using the latest networking technologies and C++ programming techniques. Measurements will be carried out in a dedicated development infrastructure as well as on the large scale production cluster.

Your profile

Skills and/or knowledge

• Proven experience with C++ programming techniques, in particular with multi-threaded, concurrent applications.
• Experience with scripting (Python/shell) and software development and management tools in Linux.
• A general interest in benchmarking, optimizing, and evolving high-throughput software components.
• Familiarity with the Linux operating system.
• Experience developing high-throughput C++ applications, practical knowledge of networking programming techniques and protocols, experience with performance optimization in parallel C++ applications would provide a distinct advantage

Eligibility criteria:

• You are a national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State.
• You have a professional background in Software Engineering or Applied Physics (or a related field) and have either:
  
  • a Master's degree with 2 to 6 years of post-graduation professional experience;
  • or a PhD with no more than 3 years of post-graduation professional experience.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.

What we offer

• A monthly stipend ranging between 6,194 and 6,808 Swiss Francs per month (net of tax).
• Coverage by CERN's comprehensive health scheme (for yourself, your spouse and children), and membership of the CERN Pension Fund.
• Depending on your individual circumstances: installation grant; family, child and infant allowances; payment of travel expenses at the beginning and end of contract.
• 30 days of paid leave per year.
• On-the-job and formal training at CERN as well as in-house language courses for English and/or French.

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