Research Software Engineer in Computational Mechanics

University of Bristol - Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering

Location: Bristol

Salary: £43,482 to £50,253 per annum pro rata, Grade: J

Hours: Part Time

Contract Type: Permanent

Placed On: 11th February 2026

Closes: 10th March 2026

Job Ref: ACAD108457

The role

We are seeking a talented and motivated Research Software Engineer (RSE) to join two major UKRI-funded projects supporting the UK’s transition to a Net Zero economy: (1) BladeUp, a Prosperity Partnership between the University of Bristol, Vestas, the world leader in wind turbine technology, and LMAT, a composites simulation SME; and (2) Gradient Shells, a Future Leaders Fellowship involving industry partners across the aerospace industry. BladeUp aims to transform wind turbine blade design and manufacturing using advanced modelling, machine learning and high-performance simulation, while Gradient Shells aims to enable high-performance structures manufactured from recycled carbon-fibre composites.

As the projects’ dedicated RSE, you will play a central role in enabling the development, integration and sustainability of the software tools that underpin various technical workstreams. Working at the intersection of research, engineering and industrial deployment, you will ensure that project software is robust, scalable and reusable, and that innovations can be translated seamlessly between academic and industrial environments.

This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to high-impact research supporting the global transition to Net Zero while working within a world-leading composites and digital engineering ecosystem.

What will you be doing?

You will work closely with academic investigators, postdoctoral researchers and engineers in industry to design, develop and maintain the research software that drives the two projects. Your responsibilities will include:

• Developing high-quality, well-documented software to support multi-scale modelling, manufacturing process simulation and stochastic design optimisation.
• Converting research prototypes into maintainable, production-ready tools and libraries.
• Managing data pipelines that support large-scale simulations and extensive experimental datasets.
• Integrating models and workflows into industry partner toolchains. Ensuring sustainable software practices through testing, version control, containerisation and workflow automation.
• Supporting computational workloads on high-performance computing systems, including optimisation for scale and performance.
• Providing technical guidance to researchers, promoting reproducibility and enabling efficient collaboration across the partnership.

You should apply if:

• You are an experienced programmer with research experience in computational mechanics and have a passion for scientific or engineering software.
• You enjoy collaborating with researchers and industry specialists to solve complex, real-world problems.
• You have strong skills in Python, C++, or similar languages, with a track record of writing clean, maintainable code.
• You are comfortable working with numerical models, simulation workflows, HPC environments or data-intensive pipelines.
• You are proactive, organised and keen to support high-quality, sustainable research software.
• You want to use your technical expertise to accelerate innovation in renewable energy, advanced composites and large-scale digital engineering.
• You can communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences and thrive in collaborative, multi-disciplinary teams.

Additional information

For informal queries please contact: Sarah Hallworth - Project Manager sarah.hallworth@bristol.ac.uk

To find out more about what it's like to work in the Faculty of Engineering, and how the Faculty supports people to achieve their potential, please see our staff blog: https://engineering.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/category/engineering-includes-me/