WHAT DOES A COMPUTER SCIENTIST DO?
Published: May 28, 2025 – The Computer Scientist develops and manages document content systems on classified networks to support the secure operation of complex and hazardous technologies. This role leads end-to-end software development, including requirement analysis, system configuration, workflow creation, testing, and implementation of application tools. The scientist also coordinates interdisciplinary research and project collaboration to enhance search capabilities, adopt emerging technologies, and ensure compliance with scientific and IT standards.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Computer Scientist
1. Computer Scientist Role Purpose
- Requirements Analysis: Understand, analyse, and refine user requirements and break them into workable units.
- Feature Development: Develop and deliver high-quality, robust, complex features with complete ownership.
- Agile Collaboration: Work collaboratively with a global team of engineers in an Agile development environment.
- Technical Leadership: Provide leadership with feature areas/platforms and significantly contribute towards the development and application of sophisticated concepts and technologies.
- Technology Evaluation: Provide direction in evaluating new technologies in his/her area of expertise.
- Customer Advocacy: Demonstrate strong customer advocacy.
- Code Quality: Follow coding standards, perform code/design reviews.
- Feature Ownership: Lead a feature's development.
2. Computer Scientist Essential Functions
- System Administration: Perform system and network procurement, installation, administration, and security duties.
- Tool Development: Develop and implement custom tools and methods, use, troubleshoot, and modify existing tools and methods to identify, isolate, preserve, and analyze digital data.
- Tool Evaluation: Assist in the identification, vetting, and implementation of new tools and methods to identify, isolate, preserve, and analyze digital data.
- Environment Setup: Assist in the development and use of basic computing environments for the analysis of digital data.
- Technical Support: Provide technical assistance in conducting interviews, searches, and other investigative and operational activities, and perform liaison and outreach functions.
- Court Testimony: Testify in court.
- Technical Writing: Draft documents on technical and other professional matters at varying degrees of difficulty and the appropriate technical level for a variety of technical and nontechnical audiences.
- Technology Awareness: Stay current with major new advances in relevant technologies, guide tools, and methods related to these advances.
- Technical Coordination: Coordinate with private-sector partners and other divisions to resolve technical and other issues relevant to investigations.
3. Computer Scientist Additional Details
- Technology Exploration: Conduct exploration, experimentation, and validation of emerging and revolutionary concepts, methods, and techniques of innovative technologies that enable Department of the Air Force warfighters to conduct operations using Command and Control System of Systems in contested near-peer, network environments.
- Computer Science Research: Apply computer engineering/computer science knowledge to perform research duties in the areas of discovery, development, and integration of innovative complex adaptive systems technologies.
- Systems Understanding: Provide the Air Force and DoD with an understanding of methods to master the complexity of joint all-domain command and control systems.
- Technical Analysis: Conduct technical analysis and research in cloud systems, automated information exchange, edge information distribution, autonomous decision aids, and machine learning based on existing techniques, modification or application of techniques, or development of new techniques to meet requirements.
- Research Presentation: Identify, prepare, and present detailed reports and technical presentations of research concepts, capturing technical tradeoffs, risks, and advances in the C2 SoS field of research.
- Prototyping: Perform research, prototyping, and demonstration of advanced technologies to address current and future Air Force net-centric interoperability requirements for maximizing the effectiveness of joint and combined military operations in tactical and operational environments.
- Problem Solving: Identify and resolve more advanced problem sets crossing organizational boundaries, and promulgate solutions.
- Scientific Investigation: Conduct and direct detailed scientific studies and investigations on complex scientific problems where guidelines are limited.
- Technical Writing: Write or coauthor technical papers reporting on the results of these investigations.
- Proposal Evaluation: Study and evaluate engineering and analytical proposals and papers submitted by academia and contractor personnel, and render scientific judgment.
4. Computer Scientist Overview
- Computer Science Research: Researching computer science topics including service-oriented information architectures, open source software trends, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality.
- Technical Reporting: Preparing reports and scientific papers concerning the application of computer technology to USGS science efforts for presentation at professional and scientific conferences, and to management groups and peer working teams.
- Web Mapping Development: Designing and developing web-based mapping applications for scientific collection, management, visualization, and distribution of geospatial data based on open source technologies.
- Technical Liaison: Serving as a point of contact on the highly technical aspects of software product development.
- Data Integration Research: Researching innovative data integration and delivery models for scientific data on wildlife populations.
- Software System Design: Designing advanced software systems for a predominantly Java-based open-source environment.
5. Computer Scientist Job Description
- Document Management Systems: Ensuring the safe operation of highly complex and potentially dangerous equipment and processes by providing user document management systems, such as Quark and Documentum, on classified networks.
- Content Modeling: Designing, developing, managing, and configuring document content models, building templates, links, publishing tools, and creating workflows.
- Requirements Analysis: Leading the work with managers, stakeholders, customers, and end users to analyze and identify user requirements, determine system features and functionality, perform system testing, verification, validation, and implement computer application tools.
- Software Documentation: Creating comprehensive software documentation.
- Search Tool Development: Leading and working as part of a team to research and develop new integrated search tools for the Weapons software portfolio of systems, enabling scientists and engineers to locate documents on the full array of classified weapons data systems.
- Project Coordination: Leading the software development work to coordinate resources, monitor timelines, and plan, track, and execute according to the project plan.
- Collaborative Development: Leading the collaboration on projects with team members, other laboratory computing organizations, and other DOE laboratories doing similar work, guiding the research, evaluation, and recommendations around the implementation of new or existing software features and emerging technologies.
- Policy Compliance: Adhering to scientific and information technology policies, programs, procedures, and practices.
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