JOB DESCRIPTION
We have an exciting opportunity for the right candidate to join our Renewable Energy Forecasting Team as a Senior Software Engineer. We provide mission critical, weather-based forecasts of wind and solar energy in real time to customers across the energy industry, paving the way for accelerated use of renewable energy around the world. We are looking for someone who is passionate about the industries we serve, about the disciplines in which we operate, and about making a difference. The ideal candidate will have experience working across the entire software development life cycle, including data engineering, database management, and API and user interface design and maintenance. A background in data science, meteorology, or renewable energy is a plus.
As the selected applicant, you will play a lead role in managing and supporting the software, data flow, and database components of our operational forecast system, which operates within a real-time 24x7 data creation and delivery environment. You will also have the opportunity to work with other experts to design and implement the next generation of our forecasting ecosystem, as we position ourselves for growth and expansion in the industry.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Specific technical responsibilities of this position will include:
- Lead the front-end and backend development and maintenance of our hosted API and user interface infrastructure
- Manage code repositories, code reviews, testing, and deployments
- Along with other experts, play a leading role in the design of new database systems, software, and data flows in the next generation of our forecasting ecosystem. Interview users, identify system requirements, evaluate existing and proposed systems, test potential tech stack options, and recommend solutions.
- Play a leading role in the development and execution of the components of the new forecasting ecosystem
- Provide technical leadership and mentorship to other team members working on common projects
- Write, modify, and maintain various modules in our forecast system software
- Support the retrieval, ingestion, quality control, and management of large volumes of data from customer, public, and private sources
- Analyze and isolate application issues and perform problem resolution
- Improve software performance by investigating problems, developing specifications, identifying trends in technology, and recommending and integrating accepted solutions
- Assist IT with recommendations on hardware and networking needs for data storage and software installations.
- Write and maintain technical documentation
- Other duties as assigned
Prospective candidates will be expected to have an exceptional professional and/or educational record with excellent front-end and backend software engineering skills. Candidates should be able to flourish in a fast-paced, multi-disciplinary environment, working with a first-rate team of meteorologists, software engineers, data scientists, renewable energy experts, and IT professionals around the world. Other essential qualities for the successful candidate include outstanding communication (spoken and written) and interpersonal skills, the ability to work independently and as part of a team, the capacity to balance several ongoing projects at once, and a strong commitment to producing high-quality work independently.
This position will report to the Director of Forecasting. Occasional after-hours and on-call support will be required.
QUALIFICATIONS
Educational and Work History Requirements:
- University degree in computer science, engineering, or related technical discipline
- 8+ years of software engineering work experience, involving a combination of front-end and backend development
Skills Requirements
The Senior Full Stack Software Engineer position will require the following skills.
- Demonstrable advanced level programming ability in Python and PHP
- Experience with, or ability to adapt to object-oriented programming style is preferred
- Experience with, or ability to quickly learn, applicable Python libraries, such as MetPy, NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, and pvlib, is preferred
- Demonstrable advanced level experience with relational database management systems, such as MySQL or PostgreSQL
- Advanced level experience with common code repository platforms such as Bitbucket or GitHub
- Advanced level experience with front-end software development, including APIs for data exchange, and user interfaces or dashboards for data visualization
- Proficiency working in a Linux environment at an intermediate level or higher
- Previous experience building, managing, and deploying applications using Docker containers
- Previous experience with code re-factoring and converting code from one language to another
- Previous hands-on experience with at least one other programming language aside from Python, and ability to learn new languages at a basic to intermediate level
Other Helpful Skills
The below skills are not required for the job, but having experience in any of these areas may enhance your application if you meet the Education, Work History, and Skills Requirements.
- Previous experience with other DevOps tools such as Jenkins or Terraform
- Previous experience working in cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform
- Experience using, applying, and evaluating machine learning models such as Gradient boosting, Random Forest, linear regression, neural networks, or others
- Demonstrated knowledge of or interest in the renewable energy or meteorological industries
- Ability to investigate and assess server and network issues when software performance falters, and communicate findings to IT for troubleshooting purposes
Work Arrangement
The Renewable Energy Team is geographically diverse. The highest concentration of team members is near the UL Solutions office in Latham, NY, but we work with colleagues from around the world that are in vastly different time zones. For the Senior Full Stack Software Engineer position, the following work arrangement options are available:
- Hybrid: At least 2-3 days per week in a UL Solutions office
- Fully remote
We are committed to promoting work-life balance with our team members. As such, exact work hours and schedule are flexible, but we do require at least some overlap in working hours with colleagues in Eastern Prevailing Time and India Standard Time for effective team collaboration. We will work with the successful candidate on an appropriate schedule, and encourage strong communication to alert the team of schedule changes.
A minimum of 40 working hours per week is required. Since our forecasting services run automatically and provide data to our customers 24x7x365, occasional after-hours or on-call support will be required as well.
ABOUT US
A global leader in applied safety science, UL Solutions (NYSE: ULS) transforms safety, security and sustainability challenges into opportunities for customers in more than 110 countries. UL Solutions delivers testing, inspection and certification services, together with software products and advisory offerings, that support our customers' product innovation and business growth. The UL Mark serves as a recognized symbol of trust in our customers' products and reflects an unwavering commitment to advancing our safety mission. We help our customers innovate, launch new products and services, navigate global markets and complex supply chains, and grow sustainably and responsibly into the future. Our science is your advantage.
