Scientific Software Engineer - Meteorological Decoders for Observation Processing and Integration

Lynker is hiring a Scientific Software Engineer to support the NOAA/NWS Office of Modeling and Development. The role develops and maintains meteorological data decoders, integrates observation data into standardized formats for numerical weather prediction, and supports operational ingestion systems.

Responsibilities:

• 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
• 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
• 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

Requirements:

• 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
• 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