Salary: Based on experience; $65,000-$80,000
Salary Basis: 12-month assignment
Work Hours/Week: 40
Position Summary: This position provides data science, back-end programming, and cloud support for the Precision Sustainable Agricultural team, USDA-ARS Data Innovations project, and the Agricultural Collaborative Outcome System (AgCROS) in partnership with Microsoft. Work consists of setting up components of a cloud architecture and data management pipeline for a distributed agricultural research team. Early work will include implementation and evaluation of the performance of the Microsoft FarmBeats platform as a scalable data- flow system for distributed networks of on-farm and on-station research that integrates multiple data inputs: direct measures of cash and cover crops (nutrients, biomass, yield), soils (sensor-based water content, EC, temperature measurements), and remote sensing (satellites, drones, and tractors).
Decision Making: The new hire will develop and deploy cloud infrastructure and data management tools based on their experience with similar systems to perform agricultural data science. The person will make decisions based on current technologies to ensure that applications developed by the data science team will run on all operating systems. The incumbent develops and documents procedures in order to ensure that these systems and software are functioning properly. The incumbent decides what needs to be done based on analyses of the situation and selects appropriate courses of action from acceptable alternatives.
Required Job Qualifications:
● Research Associate II + professional experience or B.S./B.A. degree + 5 years professional experience or Master’s degree + 2 years professional experience or PhD.
● Demonstrated ability to develop, debug, and revise software code in: Python, SQL, JavaScript, R, and Bash.
● Knowledge of hardware and software functions, network and operating system specifications, sufficient to develop new work methods, standards.
● Working knowledge of Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Server, and Linux.
● Working knowledge of cloud platforms (Azure, AWS).
● Competence in server administration and basic cybersecurity of distributed systems.
Preferred Job :Qualifications
● Degree(s) and or licensure in computer science, IT or other relevant discipline.
● Working knowledge of user interface development systems used in software application development such as git, SQL, R Studio.
Duty/ Responsibility: Designs, develops, and tests cloud infrastructure and data management tools; this includes translating technical specifications into programming specifications and development, documentation, testing, installation, and implementation of new and existing software. The incumbent works with team members on selecting the appropriate applications architecture, and ensuring the rigorous application testing policies and practices in the development and
delivery of new or modified applications.
Extends applications developed above with existing applications in the cloud environment. Interfaces with cloud user interface to optimize the resources available. Interfaces with SQL Server Platform as a Service (PaaS) as well as other cloud System as a Service (SaaS). Work with Internet 2 and High-Performance Computing Clusters to move information to/from cloud.
Contact: If you are interested in joining a fantastic team where agriculture, computer and data science can make a difference, please send a current resume, including references to: steven.mirsky@usda.gov.