Software Engineer II - WRF

Position Type:
Term - 6 months or more (Fixed Term) Visa Sponsored Job:
No Relocation Assistance Eligible:
No Hiring Range: 83,299.00 USD -  USD
* Final salary and rates are based on education, experience, and skills relevant to the role. Final date to receive applications at 12:00am MST on:

About the Role As a member of the Environmental Resilience Applications Program (ERAP) within NCAR’s Research Applications Laboratory (RAL), the incumbent will be primarily responsible for maintaining, updating, and modernizing an existing code base to support multiple meteorological decision support workflows for operational and research-based use. Specifically, this system drives the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model using differing initialization data to produce forecasts and NCAR Command Language (NCL) and Python driven postprocessing to aid end users with accurate information to make informed decisions.

This workflow is deployed across a High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster, running both nearly constantly in forecast operations and in an offline research mode. This requires that the incumbent is comfortable in various broad categories of engineering, from hardening code made by scientists to designing/implementing/troubleshooting system architecture on HPC’s.

Job Description Final date to receive applications:
September 24, 2026  pm MT

Job Location:

Boulder, CO Position Requirement:
Hybrid (minimum of 3 days a week is required to be on‑site) Position Type & Term:
Full-time, 1-Term. (Possibility of extension depending on funding availability)

Background Checks:
Conducted for candidates selected for hire. Learn more.

• System Modernization & Code Refactoring Python Migration:
  Replace legacy plotting scripts with optimized, modern alternatives to support research-based and operational forecasting tools.
• Initialization Upgrades:
  Participate in transitioning initialization data for the WRF model, benchmarking performance and integrating workflow changes onto high-performance cluster environments.
• Code Optimization:
  Evaluate performance impacts across data post-processing workflows.
• Model Workflows & Upgrades Periodically upgrade the WRF model used in both research and operations
• Troubleshoot model issues as they arise
• Establish systematic versioning on Git Hub to organize the different software versions
• Provide insights on memory, compute, and workflow bottlenecks to inform future HPC hardware specifications.
• System Monitoring & Reliability Tools Maintain and update an automated notification system to alert sysadmins and forecasters to operational model delays or failures.
• Maintain and update intuitive, web-based status dashboards enabling real‑time product tracking for forecasters.
• Monitor real‑time systems, ensure continuous pipeline reliability, and interface with university and private sector partners.
• Technical Documentation Maintain/update clear high‑level architecture documentation for the WRF ensemble and custom post‑processing pipelines as they are modernized.

Successful candidates will ensure their application materials speak to the following criteria:
Education and Experience (Required):
Bachelor's degree in computer‑related field and progressive relevant experience, which is typically gained by four to eight years of experience; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Demonstrated skill in Python and/or other scripting languages.
• Demonstrated skill in Shell scripting languages.
• Demonstrated skill in GIT and/or other code management practices and software.
• Skill in real‑time operational systems and software development.
• Skill in High‑Performance Computing systems.
• Working knowledge of LINUX/UNIX‑based operating…