Department
PSD Data Science: Tech Leadership

Job Summary
The Research Software Engineering Manager will lead our internal engineering team across our research initiatives. The successful candidate will both understand how to establish and nurture software development best practices and is also excited by the opportunity to build and grow a team in a dynamic academic environment. They will have significant technical expertise in one or more of the following areas: cloud computing, database design, web-based applications or machine learning. The engineering manager will have significant decision making capability on both which projects are selected to be worked on and how those projects are executed.

Working closely with the Director of Data Science & Engineering and the Director of Data Science Clinic, this position will also evaluate external proposals on their technical merit, costs and value. This position's responsibilities are also externally facing and will involve direct collaboration with researchers, students, post docs, and our industry and social impact partners.

This position will entail a mix of project management (including scoping, talking with our partners, planning and reporting), development activities (code review, working with our engineers and data scientists to improve their skills) and direct contribution.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team of engineers and students contributing to projects across the Data Science Institute's activities of research, education, and partnerships driving the development of robust, scalable, core components.
• Provide mentorship to engineers and students and share your passion for staying on top of tech trends, experimenting with and learning new technologies.
• Establish processes to triage bugs, track software defects, and ensure their timely resolution. Define and steward technical standards and code quality.
• Oversee internal computing resources.
• Work closely with faculty, staff, and external organizations to develop novel research and act as the principal liaison to faculty research partners.
• Collaborate with external data science partner organizations on engineering projects.
• Develop, apply and communicate standards for evaluating project proposals based on technical merit and other institutional goals.
• Develop and communicate program priorities and performance standards and assess operations using these criteria.
• Participate and direct code review and code evaluation activities.
• Act a subject matter expert and technical lead on one or more areas of database design, cloud deployment, microservices, devops best practices.
• Monitors achievement of programmatic and operational goals. Directs the management of projects, as appropriate, including ensuring that all priorities are reasonably set and appropriately met.
• Manages relationships with faculty and researchers to address their needs, both to further develop existing services and to identify new opportunities.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

Education:
Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.

Work Experience:
Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.

Certifications:

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Preferred Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor's degree, graduate degree in math, statistics, computer science, data science, or related field.

Work Experience:

• Professional software development management experience.
• Experience using and developing on one of the major cloud providers (AWS, GCP or Azure).
• Project management experience using agile methodologies (scrum, kanban, etc.).
• Strong foundation in data platform design, data science, machine learning, and AI.
• Experience with Cloud computing cost estimation and budgeting.
• Experience with research universities or research environments; experience working with faculty, students, and researchers.
• Experience in student mentoring.

Technical Skills or Knowledge:

• Significant experience developing code in Python with knowledge of Node.js and/or a compiled language such as C/C++.

Preferred Competencies

• Strong analytical skills and problem solving.
• Demonstrated communication skills and the ability to break down complex technical problems.

Application Documents

• Resume (required)
• Cover letter (preferred)

The University of Chicago uses AI-assisted tools to streamline and augment some recruitment processes; however, AI is not used to make hiring decisions.

When applying, the document(s) MUST be uploaded via the My Experience page, in the section titled Application Documents of the application.

Job Family
Research

Role Impact
People Manager

Scheduled Weekly Hours
37.5

Drug Test Required
No

Health Screen Required
No

Motor Vehicle Record Inquiry Required
No

Pay Rate Type
Salary

FLSA Status
Exempt

Pay Range
$135,000.00 - $160,000.00
The included pay rate or range represents the University's good faith estimate of the possible compensation offer for this role at the time of posting.

Benefits Eligible
Yes
The University of Chicago offers a wide range of benefits programs and resources for eligible employees, including health, retirement, and paid time off. Information about the benefit offerings can be found in the Benefits Guidebook.