Comment by chaosphere2112 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chaosphere2112 | Hacker News Reader

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I work on climate software at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[1]. My team works with big data and visualization. We support ACME[2] (the Department of Energy's climate modeling program), PCMDI[3] (a team that's been evaluating climate models since 1989), and a number of other projects and groups.

If you are interested in what you can do for the climate, we need all the help we can get. Our code may not be the epitome of hygiene (think decades-old python with docstrings that haven't been touched in that long), but in the time I've been here we've gotten loads better. All of our code lives on github ([4] and [5]), we have way more funding than we know what to do with, and we have more work to do than people to do it.

If you're interested, shoot me an email (in my profile). I'm still hunting for the job application link.

EDIT: Job link found! http://careers-ext.llnl.gov/jobs/4494026-software-developers... Don't worry about all of the skills listed, it's a generic one. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions.

[1]: https://www.llnl.gov [2]: http://climatemodeling.science.energy.gov/projects/accelerat... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_for_Climate_Model_Diag... [4]: https://github.com/ESGF [5]: https://github.com/UV-CDAT

"Anticipated Clearance Level: Q (Position will be cleared to this level)."

... why would someone working on climate modeling software need a clearance for nuclear weapon design information?

US citizenship required. And: 'If you hold multiple citizenships (U.S. and another country), you may be required to renounce your non-U.S. citizenship before a DOE L or Q clearance will be processed/granted.'

The lab clears basically all salaried employees at L or Q; if there's any chance that you might look at classified data some day (IE: if you want to interview at another group internally, or have some useful expertise that can be leveraged somewhere else), it saves everyone time and energy if you're already a Q. There's some financial reasons not to do it, but I think the math works out in favor of not running multiple levels of background check on every new hire (if they were to give you an L and then a Q).

I worked at LLNL 2001-2005 as a mechanical engineering. It was a very nice place to work. I had to go through the clearance process and that was the weirdest part. They sent people to interview a camp councelor I had when I was 10 years old! I also had to list every address I had lived at and every country I had ever visited with cooresponding dates.

Given the huge amount of personal data the government now has on me it was quite concerning when the OPM had 21.5 million government employees information hacked, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/07/0...

I used to refer to LLNL sankey diagrams all the time: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov -- really good work.

There is also the global model from the IEA: http://www.iea.org/etp/explore/

How comfortable are government software groups like this with remote workers?

The answer is "it depends". If you work for the lab, the answer is "not very" (I know of 2 or 3 full time remote workers, and they're all in the IT department and completely indispensable). If you form a contracting company that jumps through the pile of legal and bureaucratic nonsense in order to be appropriately incorporated, the answer is "we don't care where you work", though getting hired is a pain.

So, mostly, no. On the other hand, there are a number of national labs spread around the country (http://www.energy.gov/about-national-labs), and the rules may differ depending on the main kinds of work done at each of those facilities, I'm not entirely certain.

We do have a fairly liberal "work from home when you want" policy, and a formal work from home agreement can happen (a coworker works from home every monday).

It show a 404.

BTW this is open for remote work? devs outside USA?

Nope, no remote work. We hire foreign nationals and will facilitate immigration processing, but it tends to only be for truly exceptional people (though the bar is a lot lower in my group than most).

It appears from the application page that it's US citizens only. Since you work there, can you clarify after looking?

I got a 404 as well--disabling HTTPS Everywhere fixed it.

"NOTE: This is a Career Indefinite position."

Sold!

Career Indefinite means that if the project you're on ends, the lab will keep you floating for a (short) period of time till you find another source of funding.

1. Your email is not in your profile.

2. The job link throws a certificate error, and then 404s if I ignore it.

Sorry, didn't realize that my email address didn't automatically show. Added it. As for the job link, there's not a lot I can do.

Ah, it was the HTTPS Everywhere plugin messing up the link.

fwiw, the job link worked for me...

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