Senior Software Engineer Research Development

Kensington NSW (hybrid flexibility to work from home and on campus 3 days a week)
Fixed Term for 12 months
Full Time (35-hour week)

The successful Senior Software Engineer plays a key role within City Futures Research Centre in providing high level practical and efficient software engineering leadership for the Urban Copilot Project. The role entails providing technical engineering management reporting and analytical support developing software systems building key internal and external relationships and developing/ consulting on Urban Copilot Project. The role reports to Senior Lecturer supporting City Futures Research Centre at Faculty of Arts Design Architecture and has no direct reports.
Develop and monitor the delivery of Urban Copilot project to achieve operational and strategic goals from the technical perspective while oversee the development of project plans and schedules and participate in planning processes with the project team as required. on the status of project deliverables to ensure time cost and quality metrics are in line with approved project plans for assigned projects.
Provide a high level of proactive technical support to project team and stakeholders.
Assess and manage project risks and issues and provide solutions where applicable.
Coordinateadherence to UNSW governance pathwaysto ensure projects are managed within a defined consistent and proven set of rules for project development.
Ensure the delivery of software outputs of the project through full ownership of software delivery lifecycle from planning and estimation through to implementation QA and release.
Guide the development team through technical challenges mentoring engineers and promoting best practices in software development by enforcing coding standards reviewing pull requests and improving CI/CD pipelines.
Accelerate software development by reviewing and improving the existing system architecture and software delivery processes.
Lead the end-to-end development of AI-native applications from design to deployment.
Architect scalable modular systems that integrate LLMs and geospatial data while maintaining system performance scalability and reliability across services.
Stay current on trends in LLM geospatial tech and software architecture while be able to be hands-on when required
Work closely with the project manager to translate partner requirements into actionable delivery plans ensuring key milestones and deliverables are met on schedule.
Collaborate with key stakeholders to ensure user-facing features are well understood by development team and align with technical feasibility and AI capabilities.
Relevant tertiary qualification with subsequent relevant experience or equivalent competence gained through any combination of education training and experience.
Experience working with a range of computer systems and applications including but not limited to Backend tools such as Python FastAPI Go. Frontend tools such as TypeScript React AI/LLM platforms such as OpenAI Hugging Face LangChain vector DBs (e.g. Pinecone Weaviate) Geospatial tools such as PostGIS GDAL Leaflet/Mapbox QGIS GeoJSON Cloud platforms and tools such as AWS / GCP Docker Kubernetes Terraform and other software development tools such as Git GitHub.
Proven project experience with an understanding of the project life cycle and development of project plans objectives and documentation.
These pre-employment checks may include a combination of some of the following checks:
National and International Criminal history checks
Working With Children Checks
Medical Checks and Assessments
Compliance with the necessary combination of these checks is a condition of employment at UNSW.
Additional 3 days of leave over Christmas period
~ Submit both a Cover Letter and CV online via the UNSW Job Board before Sunday 22 nd February 2026 by 11:30pm. UNSW is committed to evolving a culture that embraces equity and supports a diverse and inclusive community where everyone can participate fairly in a safe and respectful environment. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and encourage applications from people of diverse gender sexual orientation cultural and linguistic backgrounds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background people with disability and those with caring and family responsibilities. UNSW provides workplace adjustments for people with disability and access to flexible work options for eligible University reserves the right not to proceed with any appointment.
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