Backend Developer for Software Heritage Full-time

The Software Heritage project

Software Heritage is a universal software source code archive project, whose aim is to recover, preserve for the very long term and share all publicly available source code, together with its development history (e.g., as stored in version control systems). The Software Heritage archive already contains over 19 billion unique source files and 4 billion commits, retrieved from almost 300 million software development projects. The Software Heritage initiative, hosted by the Inria Foundation, is an entirely free software (FOSS) and non-profit project.

The Position

We are looking for an experienced software engineer. The ideal candidate will have a particular interest in Python development, architecture and the implementation of distributed software solutions on large volumes of data, in a complex development and continuous integration environment.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of projects on which you could be asked to collaborate:

• Help design and develop components to implement the roadmap
• Maintain and develop APIs enabling the use of Software Heritage functionalities.
• Participate in the continuous improvement of existing code, processes and tools to ensure compliance with quality and industrialization standards.
• Contribute to interfacing external projects with the Software Heritage ecosystem
• Contribute to the support and diagnosis of anomalies

You can consult a more detailed list of our current projects on the Software Heritage Roadmap 2024

Main tasks and activities

• Development and maintenance of Software Heritage application components
• Participation in the design and architecture of new components and their upgrades
• Specification and documentation of software components
• Active participation in team life
• Interaction with relevant Open Source communities and Software Heritage partners

Skills

The ideal candidate will have experience of participating in existing FOSS projects, in whatever capacity (developer, community organizer, technical writer, etc.). We expect self-organization and autonomy skills commensurate with the candidate’s experience. Good web development practices should be well known or mastered, particularly in the context of open source software and continuous integration.

The following skills are expected:

• Python application development
• Modeling and design of distributed architectures
• Unit and integration testing
• Use of continuous integration tools (Gitlab, Jenkins…)
• PostgreSQL or equivalent SGDB
• Good level of English (written and spoken)

Knowledge and experience of the following will be considered an asset:

• Linux fluency
• Container technologies (e.g. docker)
• Working knowledge of distributed software architectures
• Distributed scheduling technologies (e.g. RabbitMQ, Kafka, etc.)
• Experience with web frameworks (in particular Django)
• GraphQL API development
• NoSQL databases (in particular Cassandra)
• Knowledge of Rust

Software Heritage is a complex technical architecture, based on many different technologies, which continues to evolve. We do not expect candidates to master all of them, but rather to be open to discovery and learning. Prior knowledge of one or more of the above-mentioned subjects will help in the process of getting to grips with the project, but we encourage you to apply whatever your level of experience in these technologies.

Working conditions

We are a team of 15 people, including 9 technical staff (5 developers and 4 sysadmins).
Autonomy, transparency and consultation are at the heart of our values (the project is free and open source).

Most of the team is based at the Inria center in Paris, but the position is open to any location in France close to an Inria center (Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Grenoble, Rennes, Saclay, Sofia Antipolis, Nancy).

The contract offered by Inria is a 2-year renewable full-time fixed-term contract, with the prospect of a permanent position.

• Telecommuting: 90 days/year (average 2 days per week)
• Vacation: 35 days + 10 days RTT
• Salary range: 30 to 70 k€ depending on profile and experience.

Application

Please send your application (CV + cover letter) to hiring@softwareheritage.org