Sandia National Laboratories

Early Career, Computer Science - Software Simulation and Analysis, Onsite

Sandia National Laboratories$102K — $199K *
Aerospace & Defense
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent education and experience in engineering or science.
  • Ability to obtain and maintain a DOE Q clearance.

Responsibilities

  • Develop new software for high-fidelity modeling, simulation, and machine learning using Agile methodologies.
  • Maintain and refactor legacy codebases in Fortran, C, legacy C++, and MATLAB.
  • Modernize older models to newer programming languages or frameworks.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to gather requirements and design solutions.
  • Contribute to projects in diverse areas including signal processing, machine learning, and big-data management.
  • Act as a trusted technical resource for users and partners by providing model and system level expertise.
  • Lead proposals for current and emerging challenges, and engage in leadership development initiatives.

Benefits

  • Impactful work supporting national security efforts.
  • Opportunities to lead research and development while preserving legacy capabilities.
  • Collaborative work environment that promotes continuous learning and career advancement.
Full Job Description
What Your Job Will Be Like

Are you excited about using state-of-the-art technologies while also maintaining and modernizing legacy systems that are critical to national security? Join our dynamic Sandia team, where you'll tackle a mix of innovative and longstanding challenges across the full software stack.

Typical responsibilities (you may work on any of these on a given day):
  • Agile development of new software for high-fidelity modeling, simulation, and machine learning surrogates; leverage networked compute servers or HPC resources as needed.
  • Maintain, extend, and refactor legacy codebases (e.g., Fortran, C, legacy C++, MATLAB, or other older languages) to keep existing models operational and performant.
  • Translate/modernize older models to newer languages or frameworks (e.g., moving Fortran physics models to Python/C++/GPU-accelerated libraries).
  • Collaborate with architects, developers, technical leads, customers, and end-users to gather requirements, design solutions, and deliver extensible, well documented software.
  • Contribute to missions that span signal & image processing, physics, analytics, cloud computing, machine learning, modeling & simulation, service oriented architectures, microservices, big-data management, visualization, and pattern recognition.
  • Provide model and system level expertise to users, programs, and partners, acting as a trusted technical resource.
  • Develop proposals and lead funded efforts for both current challenges and emerging needs.
  • Participate in leadership development activities (independent projects, mentorship, cross team initiatives).

Why Join Us?
  • Impactful work that directly supports national security.
  • Opportunities to lead and shape cutting-edge R&D while preserving essential legacy capabilities.
  • A collaborative environment that values continuous learning, innovation, and career growth.

Due to the nature of the work, the selected applicant must be able to work onsite.

Salary Range

$102,400 - $199,700

*Salary range is estimated, and actual salary will be determined after consideration of the selected candidate's experience and qualifications, and application of any approved geographic salary differential.

Qualifications We Require

  • A Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline, or an equivalent combination of directly relevant education and engineering or scientific experience that demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform independent research and development.
  • Ability to obtain and maintain a DOE Q clearance.


Qualifications We Desire

  • Graduate degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) in Computer Science or a highly related field, with an independent research component (thesis/dissertation).
  • Proven software development expertise across the full lifecycle, including modern practices (Agile, CI/CD, version control).
  • Experience modernizing legacy code and modernizing scientific models to newer languages or platforms.
  • Strong verbal and written communication skills; ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams.
  • Passion for continual learning and expanding technical skillsets.

Additional Experience We're Looking For
  • Development Process - Full'software lifecycle using Agile, Scrum, or Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
  • Legacy Systems - Maintenance, debugging, and migration of code written in Fortran, legacy C/C++, MATLAB, or similar environments.
  • Cloud & Containerization - AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, Docker, or comparable cloud¿native platforms.
  • Data Processing & Analytics - Design and implementation of critical data¿processing pipelines and analysis tools.
  • Problem Solving - Strong analytical, creative, and troubleshooting abilities.
  • Communication - Excellent presentation, documentation, and stakeholder¿engagement skills.
  • Team Collaboration - Ability to operate both independently and within large, multi'disciplinary teams.
  • Prioritization - Proven track'record of juggling competing priorities and delivering on schedule.
  • Customer Focus - Proactive, ¿can'do¿ attitude with a focus on responsive, high¿quality support.
  • Mission Knowledge - Familiarity with the USNDS mission, including ground and flight systems (beneficial but not required).


About Our Team

The Software Simulation and Analysis department performs research and development to advance flexible, extensible, and robust large-scale software applications for remote sensing system-level simulation as well as real-time remote sensing ground station data processing that transform data to knowledge enabling our customers to take action with confidence.

Posting Duration

This posting will be open for application submissions for a minimum of three (3) calendar days, including the 'posting date'. Sandia reserves the right to extend the posting date at any time.

About Sandia National Laboratories

The Sandia National Laboratories is one of three National Nuclear Security Administration research and development laboratories in the United States, managed and operated privately by the National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia. Their primary mission is to develop, engineer, and test the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons and high technology. Headquartered on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it also has a campus in Livermore, California, next to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and a test facility in Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii. It is Sandia's mission to maintain the reliability and surety of nuclear weapon systems, conduct research and development in arms control and nonproliferation technologies, and investigate methods for the disposal of the United States' nuclear weapons program's hazardous waste. Other missions include research and development in energy and environmental programs, as well as the surety of critical national infrastructures. In addition, Sandia is home to a wide variety of research including computational biology, mathematics, materials science, alternative energy, psychology, MEMS, and cognitive science initiatives. Sandia formerly hosted ASCI Red, one of the world's fastest supercomputers until its decommission in 2006, and now hosts ASCI Red Storm, originally known as Thor's Hammer. Sandia is also home to the Z Machine. The Z Machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world and is designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure. It is operated by Sandia National Laboratories to gather data to aid in computer modeling of nuclear weapons. In December 2016, it was announced that National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, under the direction of Honeywell International, would take over the management of Sandia National Laboratories starting on May 1, 2017. Educational opportunities are conducted in collaboration with university students through several programs, including the Securing Top Academic Research & Talent at Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program and the Sandia University Partnerships Network.
Learn more about Sandia National Laboratories
Industry
Founded
1948

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Sandia National Laboratories

More Aerospace & Defense Jobs

Find similar Early Career, Computer Science - Software Simulation and Analysis, Onsite jobs: