Cycle 4 Funding: Clément Robert research software engineer

[hamogu]

Project Description

In the last cycle, we had two open hires for an RSE position. One of them (Clément) is available to continue this work in 2024 and this proposal is to continue funding for him at a similar level as before for the next 12 months.

Project / Work

We ask to fund a research software engineer (RSE) position to tackle both user-facing and developer-facing support issues, as identified and prioritized by the Astropy community and infrastructure teams. The RSE (Clément) is expected to work independently, but with feedback from Astropy community and a dedicated contact (Moritz).

[hamogu]

CC: @neutrinoceros

[kelle]

Please remove travel from this request.

Also, given how large the budget request is, I would suggest adding a minimum request.

[mhvk]

Just to add that it has been a real pleasure to work together, @neutrinoceros! (And definitely lightened the load for @pllim and myself with numpy 2.0!)

[neutrinoceros]

It's been a blast !

[taldcroft]

Echoing @mhvk's comment, I strongly support this proposal!

[eteq]

Please react to this comment to vote on this proposal (👍, 👎, or no reaction for +0)

[mwcraig]

Please react to this comment to vote on this proposal (👍, 👎, or no reaction for +0)

If I could give two thumbs up, I definitely would!

[kelle]

I'm writing on behalf of Astropy's Finance Committee regarding the outcome of this funding request. We are pleased to be able to let you know that, following consultation with the community, we are able to approve this request. We can currently fund the Year 1 amount of US$ 50,000 to carry out the project. Funding beyond this amount will be contingent upon the availability of funds. (We will be using the full budgets of all of the approved requests to craft future grant and funding proposals.) We assume you will be using this full year 1 budget, if that is not the case please contact us immediately.

Ana Gabela and I will be your contacts on the Finance Committee to facilitate this award. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions or concerns. Please do not reach out to NumFOCUS directly. Also, after merging this PR, I will open an issue where we can discuss progress on this project.

In addition, new to this funding cycle, is the assignment of a COTR (Contracting Officer's Technical Representative) to each funded project. This concept is borrowed from government funding agencies, although it is to be stressed that Astropy's goal is to make the COTR role as low-overhead as possible. The COTR’s primary responsibility is to make sure the work is happening at the expected pace and, if necessary, to be a liaison between the funded project and the Finance Committee or CoCo. The COTR for your project will be assigned shortly and we’ll also be sending out more details about how we see this working.

The next steps are:

• Please make sure that you are registered with Open Collective: this is the system you will use to submit your invoices for payment. Note that your invoices should be submitted through the NASA project on Open Collective.
• We will reach out through NumFOCUS, Astropy's Fiscal Sponsor, to set up an “independent contractor agreement” (ICA; effectively a contract) and formal scope of work for the project.

Congratulations --- we are really looking forward to seeing you put these funds to good use!

Kelle, on behalf of the Astropy Finance Committee