Algorithm Developer (Operations Research)

bout the Role

The Algorithm Developer is responsible for developing and maintaining the optimization engines and ancillary calculations in our products. These form a core part of the overall company’s platform offering and require in-depth domain knowledge and mathematical programming experience. Not only does this role address the platforms content software development needs, but it also covers the technical support element to the business. This includes interaction with clients to understand the domain issues they are trying to solve, as well as the implementation of these solutions.

Key Accountabilities and Duties

Algorithm Design and Development

• Research new and emerging technologies in the energy domain (concentrating on specific areas, e.g. transmission developments, market rules, etc.)
• Propose concise and performant formulation specifications for new features required
• Develop the proposed feature/s while maintaining high quality coding standards (see “High Code Quality Contribution” accountability)
• Design, develop, review, re-factor, and maintain software with quality and performance in mind
• Collect feedback from design and technical staff on development needs
• Conduct technical testing to resolve existing or introduced problems
• Engage in requirement specification process for new software functionality
• Produce technical documentation such as incremental design specifications and user manuals.

Technical Support

• Liaise with colleagues and clients to reproduce and correct any defective software
• Provide technical advice and suggestions to customers
• Ensure high priority items are addressed urgently, providing timely responses
• Understand the clients query, answering technical queries concisely in language they understand (i.e. understand the domain).

High Code Quality Contribution

• Produce concise high-quality code, with performance and memory considerations at the forefront of any design
• Develop and demonstrate functionality through PoC (proof of concept) builds
• Understand core programming paradigms
• Experience with core development fundamentals, e.g. system architecture, memory management, parallel processing, base classing, etc.
• Add to engineering team’s culture of high code quality.

Global Team Interaction and Collaboration

• Seek support from local and global developer teams when required
• Recommend solutions and options to global team when required
• Participate in global projects and attend stakeholder meetings, as and when required (often outside of “normal” work hours, due to the global nature of the meetings).

Required Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Breadth of experience with .NET (including VB.NET and C#), and other development languages (e.g. C++, Python, etc.)
• Strong mathematical skills, with solid theoretical background in numerical analysis and optimization techniques
• A deep understanding of Operations Research
• Strong knowledge and experience working with complex models
• Strong knowledge and experience working with energy system modelling and simulation, analysis and operation, optimization and numerical analysis methodology
• Ability and willingness to work independently and collaboratively
• Ability to interact effectively with team members
• Ability and desire to effectively present to others
• Driven and passionate about the code and products being produced

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or a related field
• Post graduate degree (MSc, PhD, etc.), comp science , Maths, in relevant field
• experience in a .NET development environment
• Experience working in an Agile development environment
• Experience with linear and mixed integer programming tools
• Familiarity with analytical tools, such as Unit Commitment, Economic Dispatch, Load Flow, Contingency Analysis, etc.