Mid-Level C++ Developer

Overview

Black Canyon Consulting (BCC) is actively looking for a Mid-Level C++ Developer to support our work for the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), an institute of the National Institutes of Health. This opportunity is full time and onsite at the NIH-NCBI in Bethesda, MD and/or remote work.

NCBI offers an intellectually stimulating environment where scientists, software developers, and other professionals work together to solve challenging problems and help accelerate the development of treatments and cures. NCBI is a leading biomedical information center. It provides more than 6 million users each day with research, clinical, genetic, and other information that supports biomedical research and public health.

NCBI uses a wide range of applications and technologies, including Node.js, Python, Django, and C++. Its environments include petabyte-scale data, machine learning, and multiple cloud platforms. According to analytics.usa.gov, NCBI serves more users than almost any other U.S. government agency.

The developer will join an NCBI dbSNP engineering team. The team builds and maintains high-performance software, back-end services, APIs, command-line tools, data-processing workflows, and selected web applications that support public biomedical data resources.

Role Summary

• This role focuses mainly on C++ development, with significant use of Python. The developer will work on back-end services, data pipelines, APIs, command-line tools, database interactions, and software that supports public-facing NCBI variation resources.
• This is not a front-end web developer position; However, the developer should be comfortable contributing to back-end web development. The developer should also have experience with Python and Django web applications or be willing to learn them, especially for back-end work.

Job Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain high-performance C++ programs, including public-facing services that use RESTful APIs, gRPC, and similar technologies.
• Develop and maintain internal command-line applications and libraries written in C++.
• Write unit tests for C++ code using or Google Test. Boost.Test
• Build and support Python packages, command-line tools, web services, and web applications with user interfaces.
• Work with a variety of data sources, including relational databases, Cassandra keystores, and Solr collections.
• Maintain existing web application interfaces using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Make sure web applications are accessible and mobile-friendly.
• Develop and maintain test suites.
• Monitor applications for performance, security, and accessibility compliance.
• Work closely with an agile team that shares knowledge and responsibilities.
• Contribute to development standards, code reviews, and team process improvements.

Required Skills and Experience

• A bachelor's degree in computer science or a scientific field, such as engineering or physics, or equivalent experience.
• At least three years of professional experience developing high-performance programs in C++.
• Experience writing unit and integration tests for C++ systems.
• At least one year of professional experience developing programs or libraries in Python.
• An understanding of accessibility and security compliance.
• Experience with version control systems such as Git or SVN.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• The ability to work well as part of a team.

Desired Skills and Experience

• Experience working with Hadoop and related big data technologies.
• Experience writing unit tests for Python code.
• Experience developing Django web applications and services.
• Experience working with JavaScript frameworks such as Angular or React.
• Experience using web services and RESTful APIs.
• Familiarity with search engines and back-end technologies such as Lucene and Solr.
• Experience with automated regression testing using Selenium.
• Strong knowledge of Git.
• Experience with agile development processes.
• Strong teamwork, communication, and collaboration skills.