Lead Software Engineer

Position Details

Job Summary

Organizational Status

• Reports to the MSMRI Manager and works with Principal Investigators and internal and external project decision makers.
• Collaborates with researchers, coordinators, radiologists, programmers, technicians, and other staff.
• Maintains and develops a database optimized for usability, functionality, user requirements, and integration with existing systems.

Software Engineering

• Lead architecture and implementation of complex MRI research systems, including a full-stack web portal with frontend, backend, and SQL data stores.
• Manage requirements gathering, technical scoping, user consultation, and functional specification documentation.
• Direct sprint planning, backlog prioritization, version control, QA, and release processes.
• Make decisions on technology selections, frameworks, data models, and deployment standards.

Leadership and Delivery

• Supervise and mentor junior developers, students, and technical contributors by assigning work, setting expectations, and approving contributions.
• Coordinate application rollouts, infrastructure integrations, and change management with cross-functional teams.
• Author and enforce SOPs, CI/CD protocols, error tracking procedures, and software development standards.
• Optimize application performance through database tuning, load handling, and bottleneck resolution.

Research and Governance

• Align project delivery with institutional research goals and represent MSMRI in strategic technical discussions.
• Manage the IT support budget, including server and system performance monitoring costs.
• Anticipate project risks, propose solutions, and drive process improvements through automated or scalable alternatives.
• Contribute to grant writing, documentation, institutional reporting, and technical deliverables.
• Keep technical documentation, audit logs, and change histories current and review-ready.

Supervision

• Provide direct and indirect supervision to technical staff, students, and research assistants.
• Lead technical onboarding, define coding and QA standards, review deliverables, and oversee task delegation.
• Participate in hiring processes, evaluate technical fit, and contribute to performance feedback.

Minimum Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline.
• Minimum of two years of related experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Willingness to respect diverse perspectives and commitment to developing equity, diversity, and inclusion awareness.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to lead institutional-level software design and deployment, with a strong background in full-stack engineering, DevOps workflows, and technical mentoring.
• Computer science undergraduate degree is strongly preferred.
• Experience with front-end and back-end database development, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, PHP, SQL, shell scripting, and Linux/Unix is preferred.
• Object-oriented programming, GUI design, medical imaging, and machine learning interests are assets.
• Strong communication, organization, problem-solving, prioritization, accuracy, collaboration, independence, tact, discretion, and diplomacy are preferred.

Work Environment

• The position operates at the UBC Point Grey campus in a secured office workspace with networked computing and Internet access.
• The role involves collaboration with research, clinical, technical, and institutional stakeholders.