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.

The macromolecular crystallography village at Diamond comprises 7 beamlines dedicated to life science studies, from high throughput highly automated facilities through to world first, technically challenging macromolecular crystallography beamlines. Significant advances in automation have been made which drive a demanding and diverse user programme that provides a stimulating environment to continually drive newdevelopments to enable ever more challenging structural biology experiments to be realized.

We are seeking to recruit a Support/Senior Support Scientist to join the Macromolecular Crystallography group. The post holder will be essential to developing and supporting the MX group’s user programme, user support, staff and user training, maintaining documentation (manuals, websites) and providing operational support to the group. The post holder will also have the opportunity to contribute to in-house Research and Development projects.

It is preferable that candidates have appropriate experience in macromolecular crystallography and are familiar with synchrotron beamlines. Training will be provided where necessary.

This post provides an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic person to contribute to the continued success of a world-leading scientific facility.

The aim of this role is to provide technical and scientific support to the operational MX beamlines and user programme to ensure effective use of Diamond facilities by all users. Provide cover for scheduling of user beamtime across the MX village under the supervisions of the Principal Beamline Scientists. Assist in developing MX beamline capabilities and support infrastructure in collaboration with other MX staff.

Duties / Responsibilities

To support the MX Village in the following areas:

• Village operations support including day-to-day management of operations support technician;
• Local contact support to users by setting up and providing advice and guidance on the best approach to experiments, data analysis and research techniques;
• Undertake problem solving and fault diagnosis of the beamline;
• Work closely with other scientific and technical staff to produce designs for new systems, equipment or processes;
• Contribute to scientific papers from external or in-house research;
• Produce reports and documentation (e.g. manuals, webpages, social media) to support the beamlines and laboratories;
• Lead in administrative tasks in support of user scheduling for the MX village.

Additional duties / responsibilities for the senior level:

To support the MX Village in the following areas:

• Measurement of samples including data analysis and contributing to publications;
• Develop and maintain expertise in a scientific field, and apply it to user support;
• Collaborate with users and-in house staff research within area of expertise. 

• Appropriate First degree;
• Good interpersonal, communication and presentational skills;
• Ability to interact effectively and diplomatically with staff and facility users at all levels;
• Ability to design, plan, organise, and implement projects and tasks within an allotted timeframe;
• Ability and initiative to get to the heart of the problem and take it effectively through to completion;
• Strong organisational skills and methodical record keeping;
• Ability to work flexibly with occasional weekend and out-of-hours working;
• Experience with Windows/Linux/Unix.

• Relevant Postgraduate degree in science (or ability to demonstrate significant relevant experience);  Essential for senior level
• Experience of macromolecular crystallography data collection at a synchrotron;  Essential for senior level
• Experience in wet lab/crystallisation;  Essential for senior level
• Experience of MX beamline user support;
• Experience of providing user support to instrumentation;
• Experience of beamline instrumentation and optics;
• Experience of project management;
• Experience in Python and/or Java programming.