Random internet browsing! I have a previous interest in astronomy and I stumbled upon our website, which had a jobs page. They were looking for someone with Django experience.

The field has an increasingly large demand for people with software engineering experience due to the complexity of modern observatories, instrumentation and data analysis. It's only going to grow from here. The problem is competing with SV, which tends to be a black hole for talented software engineers.

Just curious, do you mean that SV's a dead end for talented software engineers? or just that it tracts most of them?

I think the meaning implied is in terms of quality of work. Even the best Silicon Valley company you might join, the big ones that pay well, will largely have you parsing xmls or other mundane programming ritual done and demonstrated to death.

Controlling telescopes, photographing once in a billion year astronomical events obviously has its coolness factor associated with it.

It tracts most of them. We can't really compete on the salary, benefits or programmer community/culture that is available in the bay area. You also are unlike to get rich in an industry that relies mostly on grants. What we do offer is meaningful work. The upside is we attract more motivated, idealistic people that tend to produce amazing work.

what is SV?

Silicon Valley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley)

I work for the NRAO and concur with WD-42: there are more positions than software developers. The main problem is finding people who can withstand our sadistic hiring process and then not laugh when we tell them the salary and where you will live. :)

Dunno about the salary and location, but the hiring process sounds fixable. :-/

>where you will live. :)

So i can't work remotely to avoid working remotely?

So where is it? I don't know if you noticed, but this thread is chock full of people who might be interested. I'm looking for a retirement job.