Research Software Engineer

The Data Science and Systems Integration (DSSI) division at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) develops scientific software to orchestrate experiments, including control systems, automation, networking, data management, and analysis.

Position Description

Brookhaven National Laboratory is seeking a Research Software Engineer / Data Scientist to join the Data Science and Systems Integration (DSSI) Division at the National Synchrotron Light Source-II (NSLS-II). This unique position is in part supported by the ILLUMINE initiative, a DOE-wide collaboration advancing intelligent experiment steering and in part by the Genesis Mission BES AI Pathfinder Program to support the automatic analysis of powder diffraction data. These projects support and complement each other to deliver unique world leading capabilities to NSLS-II's users.

The successful candidate will contribute to the development of cutting-edge software infrastructure that powers intelligent beamline control and experimental methods and will contribute to the automation of Powder Diffraction data reduction and analysis. You will help build critical technologies for self-driving beamlines by integrating AI-driven decision-making directly into experimental workflows, accelerating scientific discovery across all six DOE light and neutron sources. You will help apply all of these developments in practical applications.

This role offers an outstanding opportunity to work with artificial intelligence, high-performance scientific software, and advanced x-ray diffraction. The position focuses on fundamental software engineering, AI/ML integration, and real-time data systems with direct impact on beamline operations and user science at NSLS-II and across the DOE complex.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Develop, deploy, and maintain open-source software for experiment planning, control, and data acquisition within the Bluesky/Tiled ecosystem.
• Develop tools to automate and streamline the processing and analysis of powder diffraction data.
• Collaborate with scientists and engineers to integrate AI algorithms into beamline operations and enable intelligent experiment steering.
• Provide user-facing support, training, and documentation while publishing and presenting results to the broader community.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Bachelor’s and 8+ years, or Master’s and 6+ years, or Doctorate and +2 years post-PhD in physics, chemistry, material science, biology, computational science, an engineering discipline or closely related field of study.

• Proficiency in Python or C++ programming.

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively in a collaborative research environment.

• Self-motivated, with a strong ability to learn quickly and adapt to new challenges.

• Experience with scientific instrument data acquisition and analysis

• undefined

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Expertise in powder diffraction data analysis methods
• Experience managing distributed software systems.
• Contributions to community-led open-source projects.
• Familiarity with data acquisition and analysis at a synchrotron light source, neutron source, or other major scientific facility.
• Experience in developing and deploying AI models.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate on distributed software development teams.
• Experience with HTTP APIs and Microservices,
• Experience with containerization technologies (docker or Kubernetes)
• Familiarity with message bus solutions such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, Redis, or ZeroMQ.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is committed to providing fair, equitable and competitive compensation. The full salary range for this position is $104,700.00 - $150,733.00 / year. Salary offers will be commensurate with the final candidate’s qualification, education and experience and considered with the internal peer group.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is committed to employee success and we believe that a comprehensive employee benefits program is an important and meaningful part of the compensation employees receive. Review more information atBNL | Benefits Program

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About Us

Brookhaven National Laboratory (www.bnl.gov) delivers discovery science and transformative technology to power and secure the nation’s future. Brookhaven Lab is a multidisciplinary laboratory with seven Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, 37 R&D 100 Awards, and more than 70 years of pioneering research. The Lab is primarily supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science. Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA) operates and manages the Laboratory for DOE. BSA is a partnership between Battelle and The Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University. BSA salutes our veterans and active military members with careers that leverage the skills and unique experience they gained while serving our country, learn more at BNL | Opportunities for Veterans at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

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