Scientific Software and Consulting Owen Arnold

Talk outline Introduction to software engineering Who are Tessella and what do we do? Who do we work for? Who works for us? Who am I and why do I work for Tessella? Representative projects How to get in

Software engineering …is much more than programming Software lifecycle: Analyse Design Code Test Deploy

Software engineering What makes it interesting? Intellectually challenging and rewarding Variety of customers and projects Lots of training opportunities Rapid advancement What’s not so good? Can be high-pressure Sometimes need to put in long hours

Software engineering Who does it? Increasingly, not ‘nerds’ or ‘boffins’ Software engineering is a respected, professional discipline ‘Outsourcing’ / ‘offshoring’… … to India, China, Russia, Brazil is now commonplace To stay competitive, we need to be more than programmers We work with clients to analyse and solve business problems, offering software as part of the solution

Who are Tessella? Tessella provide software and consulting services to the following industries....

Who do we work for? Life Sciences Oil and Gas Nuclear Science Research Space & Defence Memory Institutions Consumer Industries

European and North America offices

Who works for us? Tessella has ~200 technical staff: 55% have PhDs 42% have firsts 30% have 2.1s

Who works for us? 37% Physics 16% Mathematics 11% Engineering 10% Comp Sci 10% Chemistry 7% Biology 9% Other

Why physicists? Software engineering requires: Computer programming Mathematical ability An analytical approach to problems An ability to work effectively with limited knowledge Capacity to learn – quickly Physicists have proved they can… …learn difficult things …think conceptually …solve complex problems …be adaptable …and be creative

Will I use my degree skills?  Electromagnetism  Fluid dynamics  Optimisation  General Relativity  Quantum Physics  Thermodynamics  Modelling   ? ?

Project Experience Overview 2007 Adaptive clinical trials Digital archiving for NHM 2008 Robotic control system for agrochemical 2008 Compound database for pharma 2008 Financial application for pharma 2009 Flood modelling for Environmental Agency 2009 Thermonuclear fusion (ITER) 2009 Biological diagnostics Virtual painting project 2010-Present Neutron Scattering (ISIS/RAL SNS/Oakridge)

Mainstream Technologies

Learning and Travel Opportunities Open University relational databases course BCS software engineering course ACCU developer conference NOBUGS developer conference (US) Developer workshop 2010 (US) Developer workshop Tennessee 2011 (US) Lived and worked in Aix en Provence Summer 2009 (France) Hundreds of hours of paid training since joining

Software for Paint Workflow system used within the business Ingest raw images and colour ideas Exports online portal showing applied paint schema

Colour Click

Mantid Data analysis framework and application to support the needs of the Neutron and Muon Scattering communities 33 Contributors ~500,000 of code 3 sites across 2 time zones Open source

Handling new instruments Visualising datasets > 100 Gb Consolidating existing knowledge

Conclusion Your career choice doesn’t have to follow directly from your academic discipline Tessella values… …the skills you already have …the ability you can demonstrate …your brainpower …your potential …over and above any specific subject knowledge you have gained.

Are you interested? Talk to me now Visit jobs.tessella.com Visit tessella.com More information Case studies Details of vacancies Online application form

Questions?