Job Description

Your responsibilities

Are you an experienced software developer, or a scientist with a masters degree or PhD interested in the challenges offered by computing for scientific fields such as High Energy Physics (HEP)? Do you want to contribute to the software R&D at the heart of LHC data processing and analysis?

Join the EP-SFT group at CERN, responsible for developing and maintaining core software packages used by the LHC experiments and the HEP community at large. You will become a core C++ and Python software developer in the ROOT team (https://root.cern).

In particular, you will:

• Enhance the integration and interoperability of Python and C++ codebases, with a focus on the interaction between the Python interpreter and the C++ interpreter cling (https://cling.readthedocs.io).
• Improve the design of Python interfaces to interact with C++ libraries as commonly done in scientific, performance-oriented Python packages.
• Evolve, simplify and streamline the ROOT plotting interface with a user-centric perspective and result-oriented R&D.
• Contribute to the baseline support and maintenance tasks of the project.

Your profile

Skills and/or knowledge required for the project

• Experience with software version control (e.g. git) and contributing software to large repositories.
• Advanced C++ knowledge. In particular: STL interfaces and algorithms, parallelism, thread-safety, template metaprogramming, C++17 and onwards standard features.
• Advanced Python knowledge. In particular: CPython API, Integration with C++ and C libraries, packaging and distributing Python projects via conda and/or PyPI.
• Developing plugins for widespread interactive analysis environments (e.g. JupyterLab) – Building graphics on top of common Python visualisation libraries (e.g. matplotlib, seaborn).

Optional but a plus:

• Distributed environments and Python tools to drive distributed applications (e.g. Dask, PySpark, Ray)
• Experience with building frameworks on top of the ROOT data processing tools
• Statistics and statistical treatment of data distributions
• HEP experiments, data lifecycle and analysis workflows

Eligibility criteria:

• You are a national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State.
• You have a professional background in STEM (or a related field) and have either:
  • a Master’s degree with 2 to 6 years of post-graduation professional experience;
  • or a PhD with no more than 3 years of post-graduation professional experience.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.

Additional Information

Job closing date: September 9 at 23:59 hrs CEST.

Job reference: EP-SFT-2024-130-GRAP

Contract duration: 24 months, with a possible extension up to 36 months maximum.

Target start date: 01-October-2024

What we offer

• A monthly stipend ranging between 6212 and 6828 Swiss Francs per month (net of tax).
• Coverage by CERN’s comprehensive health scheme (for yourself, your spouse and children), and membership of the CERN Pension Fund.
• Depending on your individual circumstances: installation grant; family, child and infant allowances; payment of travel expenses at the beginning and end of contract.
• 30 days of paid leave per year.
• On-the-job and formal training at CERN as well as in-house language courses for English and/or French.

About us

At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. Using the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments, they study the basic constituents of matter – fundamental particles that are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives physicists clues about how particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature. Find out more on http://home.cern.

We are on a Quest. A Journey into discovery like no other. Bring your expertise to our unique work and develop your knowledge and skills at pace. Join world-class subject matter experts on unique projects, in a Quest for greater knowledge and deeper understanding.

Begin your CERN Quest. Take Part!

Diversity has been an integral part of CERN’s mission since its foundation and is an established value of the Organization. Employing a diverse workforce is central to our success.