HPC Computational Scientist

KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology); Saudi Arabia; On-site; SAR 300,000 - 520,000; Full time

Job summary

KAUST seeks a highly motivated HPC Computational Scientist to provide expert support for compiling, running, debugging, and optimizing codes on Shaheen III CPUs/GPUs. You will enable researchers across computational science and engineering, big data, and AI by installing, porting, and tuning HPC applications and libraries.

You will develop training materials, documentation, and software tools to support cluster enablement.

Qualifications

• PhD required in computer science, computational science and engineering or related field.
• Minimum five years of experience with large-scale computing platforms and HPC environments.
• Experience in parallel computing and storage systems.

Responsibilities

• Provide expert support for compiling, running, debugging, and optimizing codes on HPC systems.
• Support researchers with HPC applications, libraries installation, porting, and performance tuning.
• Develop training materials, user docs, and internal documentation.
• Collaborate with faculty, researchers, and partners to meet research objectives.
• Prepare benchmarks and contribute to software tools for cluster enablement.

Skills

HPC expertise

C/C++ programming

Python programming

MPI/OpenMP

CUDA/OpenACC

Performance tuning

Technical communication

Education

PhD in Computer Science / CSE

Tools

CUDA

OpenCL

MPI

OpenMP

OpenACC

Job description

Position Summary

We are seeking a highly motivated and skilled HPC Computational Scientist to join our team. The successful candidate will be responsible for providing expert support in compiling, running, debugging, and optimizing internally developed codes on high-performance computing (HPC) systems, like Shaheen III CPUs and GPUs partitions.

Provide a broad range of support for users of laboratory systems and their software applications. This includes but is not limited to:

• Directly supporting research and enablement activities on KSL HPC systems in computational science and engineering, big data analysis, artificial intelligence/machine learning, or any related field.
• Providing expertise in the area of HPC applications and libraries installation, porting, and performance tuning and optimization to run efficiently on CPU and GPU architectures
• Developing, delivering, updating, and supporting all aspects of training, user documentation, and internal documentation.
• HPC applications and software tools development as necessary to support enablement activities of research conducted by users on the KSL HPC clusters and supercomputer.
• Working closely with end users (faculty, researchers, collaboration partners, and industrial partners) to meet their research objectives in collaborative research projects.

Major Responsibilities – include but are not limited to -

Support enablement activities for research work in computational science and engineering and data analysis including but not limited to:

• Provide timely and useful user support via telephone, walk-in, email, and ticketing system submissions for all types of inquiries.
• Maintain high customer service standards in dealing with and responding to user issues and questions.
• Installation, porting and tuning of high performance applications, tools and data analysis software stack
• Maintain scientific, technical and professional currency through collaboration, practice, training, conferences, independent learning, and other means.
• Maintain a broad knowledge of state-of-the-arth computer technology, equipment, and systems and support benchmarking activities in the lab for future procurements.
• Review and prepare documentation for systems, tests and installation of software
• Provides individual and/or group instruction and training on topics of interest to the user community.
• Develop software tools and parallel application libraries as necessary to support the research projects in the cluster systems and subsystems.
• Develop software application benchmarks for periodic upgrades of laboratory systems.
• Articulate and pursue research activities aligned with the laboratory and with personal strengths and interests; pursue co-authorship of papers/presentations as appropriate; engage in scientific communication and outreach.

Competencies

• Expertise in using or supporting computational science and engineering, data analysis, and artificial intelligence applications and libraries in different HPC environments.
• Demonstrated ability to support research activities in an HPC environment
• Demonstrated ability to work successfully in a highly collaborative research environment
• Proficiency in programming HPC applications and tools (e.g. Fortran, C/C++, Python, MPI, OpenMP, CUDA, OpenACC, etc.).
• Track record of publications in computational science and engineering and data analysis journals and conferences
• Strong team player with a track record of initiative and responsiveness.
• Excellent analytical, problem solving and decision-making skills
• Creative and innovative individual
• Organizational understanding and global thinking
• Flexible and delivers high-quality results within deadlines
• Planning and organizational skills
• Has knowledge of commonly used concepts, practices, and procedures within the related field of expertise
• Knowledge of project management principles and practices
• Ability to work in teams and achieve results.
• The ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously.
• Ability to work effectively in multi-cultural environment
• Demonstrated ability to prepare written and to give oral reports in English
• Strong verbal and written communication skills in English

Qualifications

Education requirement, minimum:

Ph.D. in computer science, computational science and engineering or any closely related discipline.

Experience

Experience requirement, minimum:

• Five years's experience using and supporting large scale computing platforms and related subsystems.
• Some relevant experience in computational science and engineering or any closely related discipline
• Experience in parallel computing and with storage systems
• Previous research experience in one or more of the following areas is also required:
• Performance modeling including simulation or analytical modeling or tuning of HPC codes
• I/O, Data management, Data Compression
• Emerging architectures including heterogeneous computing, memory systems;
• Node-level programming environments with experience in CUDA, OpenCL, OpenACC/OpenMP compiler directives;
• Distributed system programming models like MPI, one-sided asynchronous programming models
• Experience with computing at scale is desired (for example, computing on a system of the Top500 list).