RESEARCH ENGINEER
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
Full-time
Engineering
Posted on May 31, 2019
Req #: | 164346 |
Department: | INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION |
Job Location: | South Lake Union |
Posting Date: | 02/01/2019 |
Closing Info: | Open Until Filled |
Salary: | Salary is commensurate with experience and education |
Shift: | First Shift |
Notes: | Priority consideration will be given to applications submitted by 03/06/2019. |
UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty. All of which has allowed the UW to be nationally recognized as a “Great College to Work For” for five consecutive years.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent research center at the University of Washington. Its mission is to monitor global health conditions and health systems, as well as to evaluate interventions, initiatives, and reforms. IHME carries out a range of projects within different research areas including: the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors; Future Health Scenarios; Costs and Cost Effectiveness; Local Burden of Disease; Resource Tracking; and Impact Evaluations. The aim is to provide policymakers, donors, and researchers with the highest-quality quantitative evidence base to make decisions that achieve better health.
IHME has an outstanding opportunity for a Research Engineer to join the Global Burden of Disease project as a member of the Cause of Death Research Team. The main purpose of this position is to design, implement, and support analytic engines and diagnostics related to the estimation of causes of death that are critical inputs to IHME’s Global Burden of Disease project. This position must translate research objectives and complex operational requirements into efficient, easy-to-use, and optimized software that allows users to produce high-caliber scientific results. The position will ensure the routine operation of cause of death data standardization and correction analytic engines and diagnostic tools. He/she will problem-shoot and help data professionals and modelers to find solutions to challenges that arise in undertaking novel analyses. The position will also create new shared functions and tools to meet recurrent challenges and make the overall disease modeling, results review, and finalization process easier and more efficient.
This position requires a strong background in writing scientific software and an ability to translate researchers’ needs into a concrete software development plan. The individual will design and implement solutions that improve performance and can easily be utilized by other staff on the Cause of Death team with variable coding experience. The position ensures the software developed is appropriately flexible, scalable, and efficient. This includes providing guidance and feedback to the Cause of Death data professionals as they work on critical additions/modifications to the existing codebase to address analytical problems. The position calls for dexterity working with multiple coding languages (e.g. Python, R, SQL, Stata).
The individual must learn how multiple components of a complex analytical process relate to one another, learn the nature of the key indicators and variables being analyzed, and identify and implement ways to improve performance while maintaining high-quality and reproducible scientific results. Of particular emphasis will be the infrastructure related to the Global Burden of Disease enterprise and the causes of death analytics process and related tools and diagnostics. GBD is a systematic, scientific effort to quantify the comparative magnitude of health loss due to diseases, injuries, and risk factors by age, sex, and geography over time. The cause of death data team produces results of cause-specific mortality, which has downstream impacts on non-fatal disease and risk factor estimation.
This position may additionally work alongside other teams on complementary projects and will require knowledge and skill sharing and collective problem-solving. Overall, the Research Engineer will be a critical member of an agile, dynamic research team. This position is contingent on project funding availability.
Responsibilities:
Research learning and methods development
Research software development
Publications, presentations, and data requests
General
As a UW employee, you will enjoy generous benefits and work/life programs. For detailed information on Benefits for this position, click here.
REQUIREMENTS:
Additional Requirements:
Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.
CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT
Evening and weekend work may be required.
Application Process:
The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process. These assessments may include Workforce Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others. Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.
The University of Washington is a leader in environmental stewardship & sustainability, and committed to becoming climate neutral.
The University of Washington is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. To request disability accommodation in the application process, contact the Disability Services Office at 206-543-6450 / 206-543-6452 (tty) or dso@uw.edu.