Call for applications: Research Software Engineers in Oxford
Blog / Announcements
We’ve just opened two Research Software Engineer positions in our Oxford office, aimed at sustainably working on client-driven problem solving enabled by and in turn influencing the wealth of research expertise at Topos. These positions are the stepping stones to realising some of our long-term ambitions for Topos authored open-source software.
Topos has enjoyed a rich and rewarding history of basic research and of applying that research toward the public benefit in-line with its mission and strategic plan. The ambitions of Topos, however, continue to be greater still and to match these a new phase of organisational growth has arrived!
Looking forward, we want to make bold bets about the future of open-source software in the realm of cooperative modelling for, understanding of, and acting within complex systems. This future software is intended to be available for use by the general public but nevertheless built upon the strong foundations of our work in category theory, type theory, and declarative modelling. This approach is intended to allow us to bring the rigours and sophisticated capabilities of these areas to bear on central questions surrounding software reliability and emerging technologies, as well as to position us especially well at the forefront of development.
As suggested above in the linked organisational mission and strategic plan, this ambition is far from generic. We are explicitly interested in impactful contributions for the public benefit in key areas like climate, healthcare, medical and scientific discovery, inequality, and empowerment. There are two dominant senses of the word “idealistic”, and i think that it would be fair to attach them both to this stance: believing that very good things can be achieved even when this does not seem very likely to others; of or pertaining to an ideal, a principle that is of a very high standard. Of these two, it’s the former meaning that we see as the core challenge in this aspect of the organisation and it’s the latter meaning that gives me cause and enthusiasm for my work. Ideally (yes, again), you would feel the same way!
If that strikes you as being within the exciting-vague quadrant of the plane, then we’re on the same page. Although we have many ideas and a shared vision is slowly emerging, as yet we are not sufficiently grounded in the problem spaces spanned by real-world work in these areas and we have not yet developed the organisational capability to pro-actively seek and solve problems in these spaces to the specification and satisfaction of external parties.
It is against this larger background then that we embark on a new undertaking at Topos. To serve the joint purposes of informing our vision and our ability to make it manifest, we are building a team of Research Software Engineers in Oxford that we intend to grow into a self-sustaining and enquiry driving aspect of the broader organisation. This team will be focused on difficult technical problems for external clients, but to bring the story full circle, are intended to eventually serve internal “clients” as well.
Over the coming year we will be working hard to secure sustainable and sustaining engagements with external parties, so now is an especially exciting time to join and influence the course and nature of these founding and pilot engagements, as well as to shape the practices of the team and the software and mathematical toolkit that it develops to tackle problems.
At present we are pursuing engagements with different sorts of external parties — private organisations with domain needs, funding organisations with creator teams who have Topos-shaped needs, as well as individual researchers and practitioners with concrete scientific software demands — and we have already identified potential work in healthcare modelling, supply chains, formal verification, and LLM and machine learning applications to give some flavour.
Some of these engagements will demand rapid prototypes, while still others are expected to see complete software development lifetimes. Figuring out what all of these have in common, what the team can build for itself, and how the future directions of research could accelerate us are all part of the challenge!
If working at the intersection of category theoretic research and software development with a focus on solving real, technically difficult problems for individuals and organisations sounds fun and interesting to you, then please consider applying!
Technology is a sufficiently long lever, let’s find the public-benefit-shaped fulcrum and move the world together.