Named in honour of Alan Turing, the Institute is a place for inspiring, exciting work and we need passionate, sharp, and innovative people who want to use their skills to contribute to our mission to make great leaps in data science and AI research to change the world for the better.

Please find more information about us here

The Institute’s Research Engineering Group work towards maximising impact in data science research projects by realising cutting edge research as professionally usable software tools, so they can be used to address real-world challenges.

The Group’s staff are research software engineers, research data scientists and research computing engineers. We note the considerable overlap between these emerging roles and embrace the breadth of interdisciplinary skills and diversity of approaches entailed in these fields. Staff can choose any of these job titles and change their choice as their career progresses.

The Group is central to the institute’s research landscape and will continue to be in high demand as the Institute expands and evolves. To support this we will be recruiting on a rolling basis during this year, appraising and interviewing candidates monthly.

ROLE PURPOSE

In contrast to traditional research careers, we are committed expert collaborators, who join research teams to further the Institute’s challenges. We collaborate with scholars across the Institute’s research community to enhance the applicability of research for particular problems. We work with clients in industry, government and the third sector to turn their data challenges into research questions. We value expertise across many domains, with current members of the Group having backgrounds in psychology, mathematics, digital humanities, research computing and other areas. We rely on this diversity to design tools, practices and systems to harness the power of data science around the world.

We create software that implements research and use it to analyse client data in a readable, reliable and reproducible fashion. We present conclusions of research and analysis to the research community and clients through presentations, research papers, blog posts, interactive data visualisations and open-source software packages. We develop and work with state-of-the-art, high performance computing and cloud infrastructure to realise collaborators’ data science and artificial intelligence research at scale.

DUTIES AND AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

• Apply state-of-the-art and novel data science and artificial intelligence techniques emerging from the Institute and elsewhere to problems faced by the Turing’s clients.
• Collaborate with research colleagues to develop and maintain high-quality, well-tested software embodying research outputs.
• Present, disseminate and explain our work via presentations, reports and well-documented software packages.
• Contribute to the life of the Institute and support its community:
• Deliver teaching and training to colleagues and students, including within the team in our regular skills sessions.
• Support research colleagues to make the most of the Institute’s secure high performance computing environments for advanced research

Essential:

• Experience in a field with significant use of both computer programming and advanced statistical or numerical methods, evidenced by
• an MSc degree; or
• equivalent professional experience.
• Fluency in one or more modern programming languages used in research in data science and artificial intelligence. (We particularly work in R, Python, and modern C++, but demonstrable use of other programming languages for research, together with a facility for learning new languages, is most welcome.)
• Demonstrated enthusiasm and ability to rapidly assimilate new computational and mathematical ideas and techniques on the job and apply them successfully.

Desirable:

• An understanding of the importance of good practices for producing reliable software and reproducible analyses, such as version control, issue tracking, automated testing, package management and literate analysis tools such as Jupyter and Rmarkdown.

Please see the job description for a full breakdown of the duties, responsibilities and person specification.

TERMS & CONDITIONS

This full-time post is offered for a two-year period. The annual salary for this role is £36,236 - £38,000 (depending on skills and experience). There will also be opportunities for promotions to standard positions, to which new members are considered eligible after at least one year in the team.

Our generous benefits package includes flexible working, 30 days’ holiday (excluding bank holidays), Cycle2Work, a great pension scheme, life insurance cover, private medical insurance along with a range of other benefits.

The Alan Turing Institute is based at the British Library, in the heart of London’s Knowledge Quarter.

In line with current Government guidance, most of our organisation is currently working remotely. When Government guidance changes, we will trial a Hybrid Working Model for an initial six-month trial period. During this period, staff will be expected to work at our British Library office for a number of days per month, dependent on the requirements of the role. As a guide, we anticipate this will be between 2-4 days per month, but the hiring manager will be able to confirm this during the interview.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

If you are interested in this opportunity, please click the apply button below. You will need to register on the applicant portal and complete the application form including your CV (maximum 3 pages, no photos) and a cover letter (maximum 2 pages) as PDF documents, telling us:

• Your past experience working with code and/or data
• Why you would like to become part of the Research Engineering Group
• How your skillset would complement the activities of the team.

If you wish to share links to blog posts, public code repositories or research papers containing work that you have made significant contribution to, please add a link to those in your cover letter.

For questions about the role and the recruiting process check the Frequently Asked Questions or get in touch with us at [email protected]. If you would like to apply using a different format, please contact [email protected] where you can discuss this further.

If you are applying for more than one role at the Turing, please note that only one Cover Letter can be visible on your profile at one time. If you wish to apply for multiple roles and do not want to overwrite your existing Cover Letter, please apply for the role using the button below and forward your additional cover letter directly to [email protected] quoting the job title.

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 7 October 2022 at 23:59

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

The Alan Turing Institute is committed to creating an environment where diversity is valued and everyone is treated fairly. In accordance with the Equality Act, we welcome applications from anyone who meets the specific criteria of the post regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

Reasonable adjustments to the interview process can also be made for any candidates with a disability.

Please note all offers of employment are subject to continuous eligibility to work in the UK and satisfactory pre-employment security screening which includes a DBS Check.

Full details on the pre-employment screening process can be requested from [email protected].