Senior Scientific Software Engineer (Fed Gov)

Big challenges need bold thinkers.

If you’re someone who sees problems as opportunities, you’ll thrive here. RESPEC is 100% employee-owned, which means we take ownership of every challenge. Here, your ideas drive real solutions. Since 1969, we’ve tackled complex challenges in energy transition, infrastructure resilience, digital transformation, and sustainability.

At RESPEC, you’ll work alongside clients to take on critical problems. Depending on your expertise, you might design infrastructure in remote locations, develop renewable energy solutions for global projects, or apply data-driven technology to improve mining and water systems.

We bring deep technical knowledge, real-world experience, and a commitment to work that matters. If you're looking for a place where your contributions have real impact, you’ll fit right in.

We do not accept unsolicited resumes from third-party recruiters.

RESPEC is seeking a Senior Scientific Software Engineer to support scientific computing work for a large National Laboratory. You’ll help sustain and modernize computational modeling software used in a high-consequence environment, with a focus on reliable, maintainable code and performance on Linux and HPC systems.

Core Responsibilities

• Sustain, analyze, and modernize scientific software, including legacy systems.
• Refactor code to improve portability, efficiency, maintainability, and stability.
• Support computational modeling across conceptual, process, and numerical models.
• Debug, profile, benchmark, and assess software performance and scalability.
• Support Linux development, HPC workflows, and job-scheduler use.
• Apply software quality practices, testing, and verification and validation.
• Document source code, technical debt, risks, and software workflows.
• Support reproducible builds, scientific data workflows, and migration readiness.
• Perform work in accordance with applicable Nuclear Quality Assurance (NQA-1) requirements.

Required Technical Experience

• Master’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related discipline, such as environmental science, mathematics, or physics, and at least 5 years of relevant experience in computational modeling, software development, and documentation; or
• Bachelor’s degree in a related discipline and at least 10 years of relevant experience.

Recent project experience

• At least one project within the 5 years preceding the response deadline involving both computational modeling and software development in a regulated, safety-critical, high-consequence, or equivalent mission-critical environment.
• Ability to describe the project’s environment, tasks, responsibilities, and deliverables, and explain why the work was high-consequence or mission-critical.

Technical skills

• Scientific programming with Fortran, Python, and C and/or C++.
• GNU/Linux or equivalent development environments, including build, compilation, and debugging toolchains.
• HPC systems and job schedulers such as Slurm or equivalent.
• Bash or equivalent Unix/Linux shell scripting.
• Software quality practices, testing, and scientific data formats and workflows.
• Debugging, profiling, performance analysis, and legacy-code modernization.
• Git or equivalent version control and reproducible builds.
• Source-code documentation tools such as Doxygen or equivalent.
• Python 2 and Python 3
• C and C++
• OpenMPI, MPICH, or Intel MPI
• Serial and parallel scientific codes

Featured benefits:

• Flexible Work Schedules
• Paid Parental Leave
• 401(k) & ESOP (with company match up to 4%)
• Professional Development and Training
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Employee Assistance Program
• Medical/Dental/Vision Insurance Plans

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.