Software Research & Development Engineer / Software Research & Development Engineeress

Join the Swiss Data Science Center

The Swiss Data Science Center (SDSC) is a national research infrastructure in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) within the ETH domain, established by EPFL and ETH Zurich. Our mission is to support academic labs, hospitals, industry, and public sector stakeholders, including cantonal and federal administrations, throughout their entire data science journey—from the collection and management of data to machine learning, AI, and industrialization. With a multidisciplinary team of professionals spanning three locations (Lausanne, Zurich, Villigen), the SDSC provides expertise and services across various domains, including health and biomedical sciences, energy and sustainability, climate and environment, and large-scale scientific infrastructures.

Position: Software Research & Development Engineer

We are seeking a Software Research & Development Engineer to join our project-based engineering team in Zürich. This team plays a crucial role in transforming research outcomes into production-ready data science infrastructure, complementing our platform teams by exploring, building, and validating solutions before they are adopted as sustainable services.

Your Role

You will work at the intersection of research and engineering, transforming early-stage ideas, prototypes, and emerging solutions into reusable systems ready for real-world deployment. Your efforts will align with FAIR principles while ensuring that what is FAIR is also usable, scalable, and sustainable in practice. You'll engage in projects driven by concrete needs across various domains, including health and biomedical sciences, climate and environment, energy and sustainability, digital society, and large-scale data ecosystems.

Key Responsibilities

• Engage in focused exploration and prototyping to shape solution spaces, test approaches, and make technical choices.
• Contribute to Minimum Viable Product (MVP) development, building operational, reusable components suitable for production environments.
• Collaborate with engineers to build end-to-end solutions, focusing primarily on backend, data, and infrastructure components while occasionally supporting lightweight user-facing elements.
• Ensure continuity beyond the project lifecycle by working closely with internal platform teams and partner IT units to transition successful MVPs into production.
• Co-design solutions with users and domain experts and participate in collaborative workshops to iteratively refine requirements into robust implementations.

Your Profile

We welcome candidates from varied experience levels. Whether you are early in your career or already possess significant experience, your approach to problem-solving and collaboration is what matters most.

• You enjoy building practical systems and are comfortable navigating ambiguity while engaging with stakeholders to iterate towards solutions.
• You prioritize quality, clarity, long-term usability, and design secure systems aligned with best practices.
• You have a background in software engineering, data engineering, or a related field, with an interest in data-intensive systems.
• Your qualifications include a solid foundation in software or data engineering, typically gained through a Master’s degree or higher (e.g., PhD) in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent professional experience. Experience in one of the application domains is a plus, but not required.
• You are comfortable working at the interface between teams, bridging research, engineering, and operations to ensure successful adoption and sustainability of what is built.
• You may have experience with modern software and data engineering practices such as version control, testing, APIs, data pipelines, containerization, reproducible workflows (e.g., Docker, CI/CD, Nix), and programming in languages such as Python, Go, Rust, or similar.
• Exposure to data modeling or semantic interoperability (e.g., ontologies, common data models) is advantageous.

What We Offer

• A stimulating, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary environment in a world-class research institution.
• Flexible work arrangements.
• Exciting challenges, varied projects, and abundant opportunities for learning and growth.
• The chance to follow your passion and utilize your skills to make a meaningful impact on research communities and society.
• Opportunities to spark your creativity by experimenting with new technologies.

Apply online using the form below. Only applications matching the job profile will be considered.

Further Information

For more information about SDSC, please visit our website. For questions regarding the position, you may contact Oksana Riba Grognuz at oksana.riba@epfl.ch (no applications).

Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via email or postal services will not be considered.

The pre-selection process is managed by responsible recruiters rather than artificial intelligence. For recruitment services, the GTC of ETH Zurich apply.