APHEASARC Senior Scientific Software Developer

AP108 HEASARC Senior Scientific Software Developer

The High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive (HEASARC) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) seeks a senior scientific software developer with significant experience in developing, maintaining, and managing open source software. Experience with developing or maintaining C and C++ code would be a plus. We maintain a large code base of analysis software called HEASoft written over several decades and using multiple languages from a variety of contributors and developers.

We need to modernize the development and management practices we use. As we open source parts of this code, we expect contributions also from the community. We are furthermore developing a plan for modernizing the software itself and will need an experienced developer to be involved in the design as well as implementation of this future code base.

• Demonstrated experience developing and maintaining large, long-lived code bases in a collaborative or open source environment
• Proficiency in at least one systems-level language (C, C++, Fortran) and at least one scripting language (Python, Perl, or shell)
• Experience with modern software development practices: version control with git, code review workflows, CI/CD pipelines, and issue tracking
• Experience managing open source projects, including contribution workflows, licensing considerations, and community-facing documentation
• Ability to work across a multi-language, multi-contributor code base and improve consistency without requiring full rewrites
• Strong written communication skills for technical documentation and contributor-facing guidance
• Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, Astronomy, Computer Science or a relevant physical science
• US Citizenship or Permanent Residency (LPR) required, with US residency for the past 3 consecutive years.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Tier 1 Investigation through NASA.

• Experience modernizing or refactoring legacy scientific software
• Familiarity with HEASARC tools or high-energy astrophysics data formats (HEASoft, FTOOLS, XSPEC, FITS)
• Experience with software build systems (CMake, Autotools, or similar) across multiple platforms
  
  Background in scientific computing or research software engineering
• Experience designing software architecture for long‑term maintainability and extensibility
• Master of Science degree or higher in Physics, Astronomy, Computer Science or a relevant physical science