Senior HPC Systems Engineer

Starion; Frascati; Remote; EUR 50,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

European Space Agency (ESA) ESRIN invites applications for a Senior HPC Systems Administrator to join its Frascati, Italy site. You will manage and evolve the HPC environment, ensuring reliability, security and performance for critical scientific workloads.

We require strong Linux administration experience, expertise with PBS Pro/Slurm, Lustre, InfiniBand and automation (Bash, Python, Ansible). Fluency in English is essential, with a collaborative, international mindset.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field.
• Strong experience in Linux system administration, particularly Red Hat, CentOS or similar distributions, within production HPC or large-scale computing environments.
• Hands-on experience with HPC workload schedulers such as PBS Pro, Slurm or equivalent.
• Production experience with parallel filesystems (e.g. Lustre) and high-speed interconnects (e.g. InfiniBand).
• Proficiency in Bash, Python and Ansible for scripting and automation.
• Experience administering software licence servers, including FlexLM.
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills.
• Desire to work both autonomously and as part of a team, in an international multicultural environment.
• Fluent in English, both written and spoken.
• Experience working in classified, security-sensitive or highly regulated environments.
• Knowledge of GPU computing (CUDA, NVIDIA toolchains) and MPI stack management.
• Familiarity with HPC container technologies such as Apptainer.
• Experience with identity and access management systems like Keycloak, FreeIPA, Active Directory or Kerberos.

Responsibilities

• Administer, maintain and optimise HPC infrastructure (compute nodes, storage, interconnects, license servers).
• Ensure availability, reliability and performance via monitoring, patching, firmware updates and incident resolution.
• Configure and manage workload schedulers such as PBS Pro, Slurm.
• Manage HPC software stacks and user environments with Lmod, Spack or EasyBuild.
• Automate tasks using Bash, Python and Ansible to improve efficiency.
• Troubleshoot complex infrastructure issues and coordinate with vendors.
• Maintain secure configurations and support security compliance reviews.
• Contribute to upgrades, optimisation and continuous improvement initiatives.

Skills

Linux administration

English fluency

Teamwork & collaboration

Problem solving

Automation scripting

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field

Tools

PBS Pro

Slurm

Lustre

InfiniBand

FlexLM

Lmod

Spack

EasyBuild

Bash

Python

Ansible

Apptainer

Keycloak

FreeIPA

Active Directory

Kerberos

CUDA

Job description

European Space Agency (ESA) ESRIN invites applications for a Senior HPC Systems Administrator to join its Frascati, Italy site. You will manage and evolve the HPC environment, ensuring reliability, security and performance for critical scientific workloads.

We require strong Linux administration experience, expertise with PBS Pro/Slurm, Lustre, InfiniBand and automation (Bash, Python, Ansible). Fluency in English is essential, with a collaborative, international mindset.