Cloud Developer Advocate IV

* This posting will be taken down once we have received the first 100 qualified applications. 

** EarthScope Consortium Inc. is not able to sponsor applicants for work authorization within the United States. 

Job Title: Cloud Developer Advocate IV

Reports to: Engineering Manager IV  

Employment/FLSA Status: Full-Time/Exempt 

Remote Eligible: Yes, National, United States 

Travel Requirements: Up to 10% 

Salary Range: $81,510 - $122,265 (depending on experience, skills, and qualifications relative to the job requirements) 

Position Summary 

The Cloud Developer Advocate IV is responsible for leading the efforts for enabling and enhancing the ability for research scientists to conduct data analyses using our cloud-hosted data sets and services.  To fulfill this role, the Advocate must work with both external researchers, and internal engineering and engagement teams.  They directly support researchers by helping them design analysis workflows that are well-fit to our platform.  They advocate for these research-oriented needs by helping internal teams design solutions that support research use cases.  The Advocate must be fluent with the organizations’ data discovery and access mechanisms and data flow aspects that affect research use cases.  The Advocate IV participates in, and leads, projects and engagement activities to fulfill these responsibilities.  The ability to communicate effectively with a variety of research scientists and internal teams is an essential requirement.  The Advocate creates on-boarding material to assist researchers in transitioning their computation needs to cloud environments.  They ensure technical solutions comply with best practices for scalability, reliability, usability, and reproducibility.  They must be proactive about informing researchers who may possess a broad range of technical awareness of the capabilities, limitations, costs, and other specifics of doing research analysis in a cloud environment.  The Advocate must have a strong background in cloud computing, and a variety of approaches for performing data analysis.  They must stay current on industry best practices and emerging data processing strategies and leverage that knowledge to improve workflow and system designs. 

Details of Responsibilities 

General Essential Job Duties: 

Take lead or major role in: 

• Advocating for the cloud onboarding and capability needs of external researchers within internal engineering and engagement teams. 
• Development of software system requirements. 
• Communicating with internal stakeholders to establish requirements and implement feedback for project groups, which can include external researchers. 
• Assisting teams with defining strategic directions and promoting standards for functional and project groups. 
• Designing, developing, implementing, and supporting cloud-based data analysis workflows that serve as examples to researchers working adjacent to and with data sets we offer. 
• Creating complete plans for software development projects to meet requirements. 
• Communicating with researchers to understand their data analysis requirements. 
• Collaborating with researchers to design options for their analysis needs in cloud environments. 
• Working directly with others in functional or project groups to debug and resolve issues with software programs. 
• Writing organized and comprehensive documentation on projects. 
• Projects that include researchers and potentially other staff members to develop solutions for research computation. 
• Research community engagement activities such as workshops and conference sessions. 
• Applying the Software Development Life Cycle to projects. 
• Other duties may be assigned as necessary for the successful operation of the business. 

Leadership and Supervisory Responsibilities: 

• This position does not have supervisory responsibility. 
• Interact effectively and efficiently with EarthScope staff, community and partnering organizations.  
• Foster a professional culture through the use of strong interpersonal skills, verbal, and written communications.  
• Communicate clearly and effectively with other team members to ensure tasks are completed on time and with best practices.  

Qualifications – Tier 1

Salary Range - $81,510 - $101,887.50

Minimum Education & Experience Requirements: 

• PhD degree in geoscience, computer science, physical science, engineering, or related field AND eight (8) years of relevant experience of which six (6) years include work with a lead or major role 

OR 

• Master’s degree in geoscience, computer science, physical science, engineering, or related field AND nine (9) years of relevant experience of which seven (7) years include work with a lead or major role 

OR 

• Bachelor’s in geoscience, computer science, physical science, engineering, or related field AND ten (10) years of relevant experience of which eight (8) years include lead or major roles. 

OR 

• Twelve (12) years of relevant experience of which eight (8) years include work with a lead or major role 

Qualifications – Tier 2

Salary Range - $101,887.50 - $122,265

Minimum Education & Experience Requirements: 

• PhD degree in geoscience, computer science, physical science, engineering, or related field AND ten (10) years of relevant experience of which eight (8) years include work with a lead or major role 

OR 

• Master’s degree in geoscience, computer science, physical science, engineering, or related field AND eleven (11) years of relevant experience of which nine (9) years include work with a lead or major role 

OR 

• Bachelor’s in geoscience, computer science, physical science, engineering, or related field AND twelve (12) years of relevant experience of which ten (10) years include work with a lead or major role 

OR 

• Fourteen (14) years of relevant experience of which ten (10) years include work with a lead or major role 

Preferred Skills: 

• Five (5) years of practical cloud system and software development experience. 
• Two (2) years of demonstrated work supporting the computation needs of research scientists. 

Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities: 

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability for the position: 

• Ability to communicate effectively with research scientists, technical engineering teams, and engagement teams, and to translate the requirements and information between these groups. 
• Ability to understand the data analysis needs of research scientists and design compute, in collaboration, options to satisfy the needs in a cloud environment. 
• Disciplined approach to quality engineering via automated testing (e.g., Pytest, JUnit, etc.). 
• Ability to take initiative to learn new skills, current best practices and technologies and then apply these to projects while encouraging them throughout the organization. 

Experience with: 

• Web technologies (HTTP), cloud databases (MongoDB/DocumentDB, PostgreSQL/AWS Aurora) and familiarity with Linux. 
• Networking; working with VPNs and building secure networks, configuring connectivity between local networks and cloud environments using best practices. 
• Systems, data structures, modern scripting and enterprise level languages like Python, Java, etc., and open- source tools that can and should be leveraged to solve problems. 
• Building and deploying cloud-like operational environments and networks. 
• Software containerization (e.g., Docker). 
• Implementing projects with design patterns, service-oriented architecture, and RESTful web services development. 
• Agile practices (continuous integration, test driven development, pair programming, etc.). 

Other Requirements: 

• Appropriate availability consistent with EarthScope established practices and norms; hours may exceed 40 hours per week, particularly when traveling. 

Environment 

Physical Setting and Requirements: 

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. 

PHYSICAL DEMANDS AND WORK ENVIRONMENT: 

• Frequently required to sit 
• Frequently required to utilize hand and finger dexterity 
• Frequently required to talk or hear 
• While performing the duties of this job, the noise level in the work environment is usually quiet 
• The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds 
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include: Close vision and the ability to adjust focus. 
• Specialized equipment, machines, or vehicles used: 
• Ability to see computer screen with detailed screen menu in low lighting conditions 

EarthScope’s Mission: EarthScope Consortium is a consortium dedicated to supporting transformative global geophysical research and education.  

To Apply: Applicants may apply by going to the EarthScope Consortium Career Center: https://www.earthscope.org/careers/

Applicants MUST be authorized to work permanently in the United States.    

EarthScope Consortium participates in E-Verify. 

EarthScope Consortium is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.