Research Data Engineer

We are seeking a Research Data Engineer to work across multiple projects. The first project is “CONNECT: Digital markers to predict psychosis relapse”. This project will recruit individuals with psychosis and use smart phone apps to collect passive and active data using a prospective observational cohort study design. We will use this data to develop and validate a personalised risk prediction algorithm for relapse. The second project is the Mental Health Mission (MHM), a strategic £42.7m investment by the UK government to transform mental health research and care across the UK by combining the strengths of UK mental health research and innovation, commercial opportunities and priorities, NHS and patient priorities, and external investment. The MHM’s ambitions are to address the significant unmet need for innovative new treatments and technologies and the development of more precise treatments and interventions. Data and digital technologies are the key to achieving these aims.

The postholder’s main duty will be to provide data engineering in the study, with responsibility for:

1. Feature engineering. Working with the prediction modellers you will identify the data needs for the statistical and machine learning approaches, including data pre-processing, and feature extraction. You will develop a data and feature dictionary for the project and participate in dissemination to the wider community.
2. Development, validation, and implementation of reproducible analytic data pipelines. You will develop and validate reproducible data pipelines and implement to provide a continuous data feed into the modelling environment.
3. Visualising and reporting study data. The project will capture high resolution raw data from a range of sensors, and you will work with the clinical study team to develop novel visualisation of study progress, including missing data. You will implement novel real-time views of complex study data and metadata for clinical teams and funders.

You will join an engaged data science community at Manchester with of over 400 investigators working across the University in different disciplines allied to data sciences and connected through the Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Our expertise covers the complete data science life-cycle: from information management, through analytics, to practical applications. A key feature of our approach is very close coupling between methodologists and translational scientists, drawing on strength-in-depth in real-world applications of data science. This creates a virtuous circle, where challenging real-world problems drive the methodology research agenda, whilst providing a natural route to exploiting new algorithms and methods. We believe this deeply multidisciplinary approach is one of the distinctive features of data science at Manchester. Manchester is a member of The Alan Turing Institute: the UK’s national institute for data science, and researchers at Manchester lead a Turing research programme in health.

You should have first degree in computer science or a similar field (or equivalent). You should have specific skills and expertise in data engineering and ideally machine learning.

The School of Health Sciences is strongly committed to promoting equality and diversity, including the Athena SWAN charter for gender equality in higher education. The School holds a Silver Award which recognises their good practice in relation to gender; including flexible working arrangements, family-friendly policies, and support to allow staff achieve a good work-life balance. We particularly welcome applications from women for this post. An appointment will always be made on merit. For further information, please visit: https://www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/about/equality/                                               

What you will get in return:

• Fantastic market leading Pension scheme
• Excellent employee health and wellbeing services including an Employee Assistance Programme
• Exceptional starting annual leave entitlement, plus bank holidays
• Additional paid closure over the Christmas period
• Local and national discounts at a range of major retailers

As an equal opportunities employer we welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of age, sex, gender (or gender identity), ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and transgender status.  All appointments are made on merit.

Our University is positive about flexible working – you can find out more here

Hybrid working arrangements may be considered.     

Please note that we are unable to respond to enquiries, accept CVs or applications from Recruitment Agencies.

Any recruitment enquiries from recruitment agencies should be directed to People.Recruitment@manchester.ac.uk.

Any CV’s submitted by a recruitment agency will be considered a gift.

Enquiries about the vacancy, shortlisting and interviews:

Name: John Ainsworth

Email:  john.ainsworth@manchester.ac.uk

General enquiries:

Email: People.recruitment@manchester.ac.uk

Technical support:

https://jobseekersupport.jobtrain.co.uk/support/home

This vacancy will close for applications at midnight on the closing date.

Please see the link below for the Further Particulars document which contains the person specification criteria.