HPC Software Engineer - Digital Weather Twin Development

ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specialising in science and technology. It is renowned for its excellent education, its cutting-edge fundamental research, and its efforts to put new knowledge and innovations into practice.

The Center for Climate Systems Modeling (C2SM) at ETH and the Federal Institute of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss jointly develop and run the weather and climate model ICON. We are seeking a software engineer to develop the engine of a Digital Weather Twin (80-100%).

As a software developer, you craft the software stack that allows a user to drive and interact with a Digital Weather Twin and its model output. The core of this twin are simulations conducted with the numerical weather and climate model ICON, run at 500m resolution on a hybrid CPU/GPU based supercomputer. Your main responsibility will be to design, develop and maintain the digital twin engine. To this end, you will work in a diverse and agile team consisting of HPC experts and atmospheric scientists.

Your tasks:

• Develop and maintain the digital twin engine for remote simulation requests.
• Adapt the MeteoSwiss operational software stack for the on-demand digital twin.
• Develop and deploy a software stack enabling a user access to model output on their infrastructure.
• Maintain the ICON model on the ALPS supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing CSCS.
• Continuously learn and apply new skills to tackle challenges in the entire workflow.

• MSc in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or related fields, with a strong software engineering background.
• Solid programming skills, e.g. Python C++. GPU programming and HPC software knowledge are a plus.
• Expertise cloud and container technologies are considered an advantage.
• Experience with numerical methods and high-performance computing is highly desirable. Familiarity with numerical weather prediction or atmospheric sciences is a plus, but not necessary.
• Open-minded, enthusiastic, and collaborative, thriving in diverse teams.

At C2SM and MeteoSwiss, we are committed to promoting flexible and family-friendly working models, and a healthy work-life balance is important to us. The position offers interesting and challenging tasks. You will have the opportunity to work with a cutting-edge operational weather prediction system within a highly motivated team. Your work will directly impact the future operational weather forecasts for Switzerland and bring value to weather related decisions in all sectors.

The position is limited to 2 years. The position is available immediately and will remain open until filled. The place of work is at MeteoSwiss at Zurich-Airport, but working remotely a few days per week is common practise.

We look forward to receiving your online application with the following documents:

• letter of interest,
• a CV,
• the names and contact information of 1-2 references.

Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via email or postal services will not be considered.

Further information on this position can be obtained from Xavier Lapillonne (he/him, Write an email; no applications). For further information on C2SM and the collaboration between ETH and MeteoSwiss, please contact the executive director of C2SM, Christina Schnadt Poberaj (she/her, Write an email; no applications).

For recruitment services the GTC of ETH Zurich apply.