Diamond Light Source is the UK’s national synchrotron science facility. Located on the Harwell Science & Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire a 20 minute drive south of Oxford in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Diamond Light Source conducts world-class research in virtually all fields of science and offers rewarding career opportunities covering both technical and scientific disciplines.

We are seeking enthusiastic and motivated programmers to join the DIALS (Diffraction Integration for Advanced Light Sources) development team at Diamond Light Source. DIALS is breaking the mould in the analysis of diffraction data by being the first highly collaborative and fully open source initiative in this field of research. After an initial phase of development DIALS is now a leading piece of software in use at many labs and synchrotron facilities worldwide. Diamond has now received further funding to enhance and increase the scope of DIALS in strategic areas.

The successful candidates will work on the development of algorithms and code to enhance the performance and reach of DIALS in one or more areas including synchrotron serial crystallography, MicroED data analysis, post-refinement, data scaling and code optimization for high performance operation. She/He will join a highly focused and dedicated development team of scientists working on cutting edge data analysis techniques for X-ray, electron and neutron crystallography. She/He will be expected to contribute actively to support a culture of open development. The post will involve close interactions with DIALS team members at Diamond and CCP4 and many close collaborators around the world.

The DIALS team works closely with staff and users of other Diamond facilities such as the X-ray beamlines, the XFEL-Hub, the electron Bio-Imaging Centre (eBIC) and the Membrane Protein Laboratory (MPL) creating exciting opportunities for you to engage and participate in cutting edge experimental work by offering the very latest in data analysis methodology.

Duties / responsibilities:

Develop algorithms and computer code to enhance the capabilities and scope of the DIALS software:

• Occasional measurement of diffraction data sets from Diamond beamlines;
• Develop and maintain expertise in a scientific field;
• Work closely with scientific and technical staff at Diamond to develop algorithms and code that contribute to the analysis of data from Diamond’s beamlines;
• Collaborate with users and in house staff research within area of expertise;
• Contribute to scientific papers from external or in-house research;
• Support DIALS users by responding to bug reports and feature requests;
• Support Diamond staff and users by providing advice and guidance on the best approach to data analysis and research techniques.

• PhD or equivalent experience in mathematics, physics or a related discipline;
• Good interpersonal, communication, organizational and presentational skills;
• Ability to interact with staff and facility users at all levels;
• Ability and initiative to get to the heart of the problem and take it effectively through to completion;
• Ability to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team;
• Ability to work flexibly with occasional weekend and out-of hours;
• Available for occasional travel within the UK and abroad for periods of typically a few days up to a week;
• Self motivation;
• Experience in object oriented programming languages, preferably C++/Python;
• Experience in advanced programming techniques.

• Experience in X-ray diffraction and crystallography;
• Experience in advanced mathematics and algorithm development;
• Experience in developing optimized computer code for high data volume and high data rate performance.