Scientific Software Engineer - Meteorological Decoders for Observation Processing and Integration

Overview

Lynker is seeking a highly skilled Software Engineer to support the NOAA/NWS Office of Modeling and Development by managing, developing, and optimizing the meteorological data decoder systems. This role focuses on the critical pipeline that converts diverse, native-format meteorological observations into standardized formats required for downstream numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems.

Responsibilities

Duties of the Scientific Software Engineer will include the following:

 

Technical Operations & R&D

 

• Develop, maintain, and optimize C and Fortran programs used to decode raw meteorological bulletins.

 

• Translate non-standard native data formats into BUFR and JEDI IODA netcdf by engineering specialized decoder logic

 

• Ensure uninterrupted, efficient data flow by managing input and output streams for ingest data queues, descriptor lists, and temporary BUFR message storage.

 

Systems & Data Integration

 

• Monitor and troubleshoot operational data ingestion across major meteorological data servers, including LDM, DBNet, GTS, and WIS2.

 

• Ensure decoded data tanks are optimized for rapid assimilation into the NCEP NWP system, supporting the generation of thousands of daily weather products.

 

• Manage and maintain the software repositories pertaining to legacy and operational decoder processing.

 

Coordination & Reporting

 

• Liaise with upstream data originators and downstream NCO Operations users to seamlessly integrate new observational data types into the BUFR pipeline.

 

• Report on software task progress, system performance metrics, and project risks to the Lead Scientist and Federal oversight managers.

 

• Participate in the Modernization of Observation Infrastructure project (GEODE) to transition legacy decoder frameworks to modern architectures.

Qualifications

The Scientist Software Engineer selected for this role should meet the following qualifications:

 

• Advanced skills and knowledge of Fortran and C programming languages specifically tailored for data parsing and processing.

 

• Deep understanding of BUFR (Binary Universal Form for the Representation of meteorological data), including table-driven descriptors and binary extraction logic.

 

• Experience working in a UNIX/Linux environment with advanced shell scripting languages.

 

• Demonstrated knowledge of meteorological data servers and distribution networks (LDM, DBNet, GTS, WIS2).

 

• Skills and knowledge of High-Performance Computing (HPC) file systems and job schedulers (e.g., WCOSS environment, MPI, Slurm, LSF).

 

• Knowledge of modern software development practices and version control software, particularly Git/GitHub/Gitflow.

 

• Ability to perform complex, mission-critical debugging in a fast-paced, operational environment.

 

 

Additional desirable experiences and skills include:

 

• Knowledge of global Data Assimilation (DA) systems and observation networks.
• Experience transitioning legacy meteorological codebases into Cloud environments.
• Background in atmospheric physics or earth system modeling.