Diamond Light Source is a new synchrotron and a leading scientific facility of its type in the world. Located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in South Oxfordshire, we host facilities supporting cutting edge research in all fields of science.

A high calibre Java Programmer is required to complement the current Data Acquisition Team at the Diamond Light Source.

The successful candidate will work on the development of the Data Acquisition systems of the various beamlines at Diamond. The role involves close contact with a range of interesting computing technologies and scientific methods.

The Data Acquisition system is based on GDA which is an Open Source (www.opengda.org) project developed primarily by the team at Diamond, following many of the Agile development practises.

Implement, support and enhance software for Data Acquisition applicable across all Diamond Beamlines. The role holder will work closely with the beamline scientists and users of Diamond to examine their user operation, first to establish requirements for data acquisition and then ensure that they are implemented.

• Working with the beamline scientists and the data analysis team to define and document requirements for experimental beamlines
• Use advanced programming tools and object oriented languages to design, implement and support the data acquisition software for one or more Diamond beamlines.
• Writing scripting software for the advanced control of instrumentation associated with experimental beamlines.
• Core Data Acquisition (GDA) code development.
• Defining, documenting and implementing testing strategies for data acquisition software.
• Develop and maintain expertise in software techniques, and apply them to the development of new software applications and associated frameworks
• Provide a technical advisory/support function within area of expertise to other departments or divisions.
• Maintain responsibility for the management and co-ordination of own workload and ensure outputs delivered on time and to high quality
• First line support of the software for one for more Diamond beamline interacting closely with both beamline staff and external users.

• First degree or equivalent qualification;
• Use of software development frameworks and applications such as Eclipse;
• Experience of modern programming languages such as Java, C, C++ and Python;
• Background in using software engineering techniques for development;
• Requires significant practical experience in a professional, scientific or technical field;
• Ability and initiative to get to the heart of the problem and take it effectively through to completion;
• Ability to supervise or mentor small teams of more junior technical or administrative roles;
• Good interpersonal, communication  and presentational skills;
• Enjoys team work;
• Self motivated, interested in keeping pace with software testing best practises;
• Ability to interact effectively with staff at all levels.

• Available to travel occasionally in UK and overseas including overnight absences;
• Experience of UNIX-like operating systems and their administration;
• Experience of interfacing software to hardware;
• Experience of GUI development;
• Project management experience.