diff --git a/.devcontainer/Dockerfile b/.devcontainer/Dockerfile
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9088efc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.devcontainer/Dockerfile
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+FROM ubuntu
+
+ARG VENV_PATH=/opt/dev-venv
+ENV VENV_ACTIVATE=${VENV_PATH}/bin/activate
+
+RUN apt update
+RUN apt install -y python3.10-venv nvidia-cuda-toolkit gcc vim git
+
+# the mkdir command bypasses a profiler error, which allows us to run it with
+# host code only to at least check that the profiler parameters are correctly
+# provided; without this line, some tests will fail
+RUN mkdir -p /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/nsight-compute/sections
+
+# we create the virtualenv here so that the devcontainer.json setting
+# python.defaultInterpreterPath can be used to find it; if we do it in the
+# post_create.sh script, the virtualenv will not be loaded and features like
+# pylance, black, isort, etc. will not work
+RUN python3.10 -m venv ${VENV_PATH}
+RUN echo "source ${VENV_ACTIVATE}" >> ~/.bashrc
diff --git a/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c6e997c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+{
+    "name": "Python Environment",
+    "build": {
+        "dockerfile": "Dockerfile",
+        "context": ".."
+    },
+    "postCreateCommand": "bash .devcontainer/post_create.sh",
+    "customizations": {
+        "vscode": {
+            "extensions": [
+                "editorconfig.editorconfig",
+                "ms-azuretools.vscode-docker",
+                "ms-python.python",
+                "ms-python.vscode-pylance",
+                "ms-python.pylint",
+                "ms-python.isort",
+                "ms-python.flake8",
+                "ms-python.black-formatter",
+                "ryanluker.vscode-coverage-gutters"
+            ],
+            "settings": {
+                "python.defaultInterpreterPath": "/opt/dev-venv/bin/python"
+            }
+        }
+    }
+}
diff --git a/.devcontainer/post_create.sh b/.devcontainer/post_create.sh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..15fd069
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.devcontainer/post_create.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# install developer dependencies
+pip install .[dev]
+
+# make sure the developer uses pre-commit hooks
+pre-commit install