We are seeking a full-time Research Software Engineer to join the School of Design’s CoCreate group to contribute to impactful digital health and wellbeing research. The post is part of the DIGITS project, which is funded by Arthritis Research UK. The post is full time and fixed-term for 18 months.

You will be a key member of the DIGITS team and will carry out software engineering and technical development activities that will contribute to the delivery of a smartphone-based digital health intervention for people with Sjögren’s syndrome. The project involves exploring new ways to help people with Sjögren’s self-manage their condition, including how mobile technologies might support the self-tracking of symptoms and provide contextually relevant health information. As such, you will have strong digital prototyping skills, and have experience of creating robust and reliable mobile applications that have undergone ‘real world’ use.

As part of the project team, you will work closely with researchers conducting human-centred research with patients, and translate the findings from this research into requirements for the mobile intervention. A considerable amount of the project will be dedicated to the iterative design, development and testing of the intervention, where you will continue to work with project team members who will be gathering feedback from patients. Following this, you will lead on finalising the development of the intervention, so it can be distributed to research participants as part of a large-scale evaluation of its efficacy. During this time, you will ensure there liability of the intervention, and support with gathering analytical data from patient’s use of the application.

For the duration of this post you will be based in the CoCreate group, in Northumbria School of Design. CoCreate is a dynamic group where researchers have backgrounds in design, computing and social science, and work on a range of human-centred projects around emerging technologies. This will provide a supportive and collaborative environment to develop new technical and research skills, while also offering opportunities to input into new collaborative projects around health, wellbeing and other socially impactful topics.

You will have a Bachelors(first-class or high second-class) or Master’s degree (Merit or Distinction) in computer science or a technically oriented design subject, and relevant professional experience to be able to suitably demonstrate the technical experience and skills required for the project. Experience of working in research environments is desirable, but not essential. However, we do expect strong applicants to have experience of working in software development or design teams, and demonstrate strong communication and collaborative skills.

For an informal discussion about the post, please contact John Vines at john.vines@northumbria.ac.uk.

To apply for this vacancy please click 'Apply Now',  and submit a Covering Letter and your CV, including a full list of publications where relevant and any documents specifically requested in the Role Description and Person Specification, such as a sample of written work or journal article.

Northumbria University takes pride in, and values, the quality and diversity of our staff. We welcome applications from all members of the community. The University holds an Athena SWAN Bronze award in recognition of our commitment to improving employment practices for the advancement of gender equality and is a member of the Euraxess  network, which delivers information and support to professional researchers.

Please note this vacancy will close on 08/12/2019