Mark Basham - Senior Software Scientist

Can you walk us through a typical day?

Most of my day is filled with collaboration discussions and project management, ensuring that the members of my team and those working with us are getting the best value out of the work that they do. I am still a keen software developer, and so whenever I get the chance I also write software, and review the code of others.

What do you enjoy about your job?

One of the great elements of my job is being able to get involved with outreach to the general public, letting them know about all the valuable work we conduct here at Diamond. I especially like demonstrating how software is critical to getting the most of the amazing facility we have, and that it is a truly cross STEM role.  This has given me the chance to create and build interesteding outreach tools like the Lego beamline, and work with excellent projects such as live tweeting the experimental results from Diamond's Project M. 

What advice would you give to someone wanting to get involved in your field?

Scientific Software and Software Engineering in general is currently suffering a massive skills shortage in the UK, and people working in this area are in high demand. If you have an interest in science and software development, then I would thoroughly recommend considering this exciting and very diverse career path.  Generally a degree in computing with a scientific or mathematical side, such as Physics with Computer Science, or Engineering is a good base, and then depending on where you would like to go, a PhD in a relevant area would be suitable to get you into more senior roles in the field.