This vacancy is now closed

Closing Date
16/02/2022
Division
Science
Description

Starting Salary: Scientist £32,527 or Junior Scientist £24,392

Full Time - Open-Ended Appointment

 

Renowned internationally for its research excellence supporting a sustainable ocean, Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) has an exciting opportunity for a Data Visualisation & GIS Developer to join the Centre for Geospatial Applications.

PML is known for delivering impactful and award-winning science, from the poles to the tropics, and from lakes to the open ocean. In 2020 we launched our new PML Strategy (2020-2025) setting out our mission to enhance our position as a world leader in the field of marine science, whilst focusing on our vision of a healthy and sustainable ocean. The Centre for Geospatial Applications is responsible for producing Earth Observation data products using satellite data inputs on a commercial scale. We provide data to arguably the largest and most ambitious Earth observation and climate change programmes currently underway; our marine data is core to the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS), the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), and ESA’s Climate Change Initiative.  

Presenting data in a visually appealing and engaging way is an important facet of conveying scientific information to the wider community and can be key to ensuring that the full meaning of the message is understood. Data visualisation at PML has historically focused on spatial data with the development of a web-based GIS tool over the past 8 years, and this is now a valuable tool for providing interactive and intuitive access to high-volume Earth observation and marine system model data.

This role will be dedicated to the development of the web-based GIS tool and related visualisation of spatial and time series data. This tool enables scientists and non-scientists to access very large spatial datasets using just a web browser; a suite of analytical tools provides methods for time series analysis, comparison with in situ data, and animation. The tool is widely used in PML research projects, and commercially by PML Applications for the delivery of datasets in a way that customers can easily interact with.

The resources that we work with to deliver our products will be available to you; these include an in-house grid computing infrastructure of approximately 1,400 CPUs and 7TB RAM; more than 8.5PB of storage (and growing regularly); a cutting-edge GPU cluster boasting 1.3Tb graphics processing memory, and 230,000 compute cores optimised for deep learning; a 2Gbps internet connection.

Skills

We are seeking someone with the following skills; you don’t need to have all of these skills on day one, but you should be keen to pick up those skills you don’t currently have

  • A thorough understanding of data visualisation techniques
  • An in-depth understanding and hands-on experience of UX/UI design methodologies
  • Strong JavaScript skills, including ES6
  • Experience in using plotting and presentation libraries such as Bokeh, Plotly, and D3.js
  • Confident in analytical/statistical programming using Python
  • Working knowledge of Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) services
  • Bachelor’s degree in a computer science related subject or equivalent experience
  • Ability to think creatively and propose innovative solutions.
  • Strong JavaScript skills, with good skills in Python, HTML, CSS. Confident working in a Linux environment
  • Strong numerical analysis skills
  • Should be able to manage their time effectively addressing priorities in order.
  • Very strong oral and written communication; must be able to convey complex topics in terms that are suitable for the audience
  • Ability to build internal and external relationships.

PML is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, and our policy can be found here: https://www.pml.ac.uk/getattachment/Working_with_us/SN_40_20_PML_Equalilty_diversity_and_inclusion_policy.pdf. We are proud to have achieved the Athena SWAN award as recognition of our achievements in gender equality. As part of this, we offer opportunities to discuss flexible working and whilst the selection process will be based on merit, we particularly welcome applications from female candidates, currently underrepresented.

PML offers a variety of employee benefits: https://www.pml.ac.uk/Working_with_us/Vacancies/Employee_Benefits

PML operates a hybrid working policy whereby employees are able to split their working arrangements between PML’s Plymouth offices and home based working.