Diamond Light Source is one of the most advanced scientific facilities in the world.  It houses the UK’s synchrotron light source, a giant microscope that can produce beams of light 10 billion times brighter than the sun, to probe the structure and composition of matter. From viruses and vaccines, to alternative energy solutions and nanotechnology, it underpins research and innovation for more than 8000 scientists. The development of the facility is key to maintaining its world-class, and in many areas, world-leading standing. Developments include improvements in brightness of sources, optical components and state-of-the-art detectors. Such developments initiate new requirements and operational support of the distributed-control systems, along with advances in data acquisition.

This is an exciting opportunity to lead Diamond’s Spectroscopy & Imaging software team. You will be responsible for the software that orchestrates the experiments across more than a quarter of experimental stations at this cutting edge facility. These beamlines support an international community of academic researchers and companies investigating everything from bees to jet engines. This team of software engineers and scientists are increasing the throughput and capabilities of these beamlines and developing new facilities. We are currently integrating faster and higher capacity detectors, providing faster and more advanced analysis in real-time and improving the workflow and usability of the beamlines. Through automating and streamlining more-and-more of the experimental process, your team will play a key role in helping these beamlines perform more and better science.

You will be working among the enthusiastic, creative and driven scientists and engineers that are critical to its ongoing success. This is a permanent position offering good career and personal development opportunities to the right candidate.

Main responsibilities will include:

• Provide leadership within the team that develops tests, maintains and supports the GDA software on Diamond’s beamlines, in collaboration with beamline staff, other members of the Data Acquisition group, and the Scientific Software and other groups.
• Provide direction and support to other Data Acquisition scientists. Encourage the consolidation of workflows and software used across beamlines that use overlapping techniques. Keep the user experience across beamlines consistent.
• Lead larger projects that require the input of software engineers from the group and from Diamond’s scisoft & controls groups.
• Provide first line support of the software for beamlines, interacting closely with both beamline staff and external users. Including fault diagnosis and resolution. Call on specialists if required.
• Use technical and professional knowledge to identify opportunities for technical or process improvement across the beamlines supported by the team.
• Deliver high quality reporting and professional advice, presenting findings to senior management and guiding future approach. 

Benefits:

Diamond is one of the UK's leading research institutions, enabling scientific breakthroughs in many disciplines. Being a part of the Diamond team allows our staff to shape some of the most important and exciting scientific projects being undertaken anywhere in the UK. Diamond is a family friendly employer, with a competitive pension scheme and benefits packages including relocation (where applicable). We provide continuous learning for our staff, with training and development opportunities available across the organisation. The Diamond site is located in the beautiful South Oxfordshire countryside on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus. We share a site with the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, the Research Complex at Harwell, the pulsed neutron and muon source, ISIS and the European Space Agency, amongst others. This diverse and vibrant campus brings together some of the leading research facilities in the UK on one site with good access to local towns and cities, and excellent schools.
 

• First degree in engineering or science;
• Experienced professional with post-qualification experience in experimental science;
• Experience in managing significant projects, co-ordinating internal/external resources and managing associated budgets;
• Previous experience in supervising and directing small projects;
• Experience in planning ahead for resource, budget and/or technical requirements and negotiating appropriate resources;
• Ability and initiative to get to the heart of the problem and take it effectively through to completion;
• Good interpersonal, communication and presentational skills;
• Conscientious and pays attention to details;
• Ability to interact effectively with staff at all levels;
• Self motivated;
• Must be available to travel occasionally in UK and overseas including overnight absences;
• Ability to work on own initiative and take personal responsibility for delivery of work packages;
• Ability to communicate complex information to a ‘non-technical’ audience in an easily comprehensible way;
• Ability to analyse, collate and present information in coherent reports or briefings;
• Ability to influence at a senior management level using in-depth professional knowledge.

• PhD in science;
• Experience of object oriented languages such as Java, C, C++ or Python;
• Experience of UNIX-like operating systems and their administration.