Programmer and Software Developer Services

The Vendor is required to provide work includes analysis, design, development, implementation and testing of software for precision opto-mechanical components and systems for astronomical instrumentation.
- Novel and unique software and integrated hardware/software systems will be developed for complex, state-of-the-art astronomical instrumentation (e.g., adaptive optic systems, spectrographs, cameras, measuring equipment).
- The work will involve developing software throughout the lifecycle of complex opto-mechanical instrumentation systems. 
- This will include designing, documenting, implementing, testing and integrating highly optimized and efficient code. 
- Often the software will be for adaptive optics real-time systems where many mathematical operations are completed within deterministic timings and extremely low latency and in some cases across multiple CPUs and servers.
- This also involves developing software interfaces to hardware that can be either common off-the-shelf components or custom mechanisms.
- Some components will have software-development kits that are operating system dependent that need to be ported to alternate systems, which will involve a certain level of systems knowledge and debugging. 
- This also requires significant experience with debugging of large, multi-threaded and multi-process software systems (e.g., 100k lines of code). 
- Software standards will need to be followed and specific programming languages and operating systems will need to be used, depending on the projects being developed. 
- Inline and embedded documentation in the software also needs to follow standards, as well as for any additional supplementary documentation required, such as design or interface documents. 
- Operating system development and administration experience is preferred but not necessary, for example building kernels, installing low-level device drivers, allocation of processes to cores, debugging network interfaces, etc.
- This will also include developing software that handles divers file types. 
- The work could also include programming a variety of control systems, interfacing with several different types of actuators, sensors and other components.

- Contract Period/Term: 1 year