Backend Software Engineer I/II

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Center for Geospatial Solutions is hiring a backend-focused software engineer for its Internet of Water initiative. The role builds and maintains software, data pipelines, and infrastructure that support water data management, including development, deployment, operations, and collaboration with domain experts.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and modify internal and external-facing software as part of engineering teams that may include internal team staff and external collaborators and/or contractors
• Focus on developing backend software components and services that interact with upstream and downstream components (including front-end user interfaces and back-end data management and transformation processes and APIs)
• Develop reusable tools, libraries, and frameworks for data integration, analysis, and visualization that can be applied across multiple projects and initiatives
• Produce high-quality code and software for data management, publication, aggregation, and visualization with appropriate documentation
• Ensure reproducibility, accessibility, and sustainability of Center-developed software and data systems
• Participate in all aspects of the application development life cycle, including specifications, prototypes, development, quality assurance, deployment, and operations and maintenance
• Design, develop, and maintain efficient data pipelines that extract data from various data sources, transform it into a unified data model, and push it to a destination data store through strong collaboration with water, land, and housing domain experts to understand data sources and requirements
• Develop end-to-end systems for data harmonization, geocoding, and integration of large, heterogeneous datasets from diverse sources
• Implement data validation and cleansing processes to ensure high data quality and integrity
• Identify and integrate new technologies and tools to improve data processing and storage
• Work closely with water domain experts to translate domain-specific needs into technical requirements
• Create and maintain documentation for data pipelines, including data models, ETL processes, and data flow diagrams
• Assume principal responsibility for CI/CD of web services as well as software and data releases
• Support research, development, and operations by troubleshooting and resolving issues that arise
• Take technical responsibility for systems and be on the lookout for opportunities for new systems, improvement of existing systems, and work with the team to keep systems scaling and performing optimally
• Participate in team code reviews, present your work for feedback, and provide constructive feedback to others
• Clearly communicate technical capabilities, limitations, issues, and recommendations to both technical and non-technical audiences, including stakeholders, partners, and domain experts
• Work collegially and successfully in interdisciplinary teams with colleagues from various topical backgrounds and different skill levels and communication levels
• Contribute to grant proposals, technical documentation, and reports that support CGS and Internet of Water initiatives
• Participate in training, workshops, and outreach activities to promote best practices in water data management and geospatial solutions

Requirements:

• strong foundations in software design
• an eagerness to learn and solve challenging problems
• Experience with JavaScript, Python, APIs, Linux, relational databases, Docker, and public cloud providers