AI-Agent Network Scientist for HPC & Science

California Institute of Technology; Pasadena (CA); On-site; USD 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

The California Institute of Technology seeks a Research Scientist with expertise in networks, AI, and distributed systems to work with the SciNet project and Oak Ridge partners. You will develop AI-agent architectures, study HPC networking, and build reproducible experiments using Python and ML frameworks.

You will collaborate across university and national lab partners, publish results, and contribute to toolchains that monitor, optimize, and autonomously manage scientific networks.

Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, Data Science, AI/ML, or related field.
• Strong programming skills, preferably in Python.
• Understanding of computer networking and distributed systems.
• Familiarity with machine learning or artificial intelligence.
• Ability to conduct experiments, analyze data, and communicate technical results.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and as part of a multidisciplinary research team.

Responsibilities

• Investigate architectures for AI agents operating in networked systems.
• Develop and evaluate LLM-based and reinforcement-learning-based network agents.
• Explore multi-agent approaches for network monitoring, optimization, troubleshooting, and orchestration.
• Investigate agent planning, reasoning, tool use, memory, and coordination for network operations.
• Develop methods for safe and reliable autonomous network decision-making.
• Analyze network telemetry, traffic patterns, performance metrics, and system events.
• Study network optimization problems including routing, congestion control, traffic engineering, and resource allocation.
• Investigate interactions between compute, storage, and network resources in HPC environments.
• Evaluate AI-agent approaches using HPC and scientific networking workloads.
• Develop experimental environments using network simulators, emulators, digital twins, and HPC testbeds.
• Implement prototype AI-agent systems and integrate them with networking tools.
• Conduct controlled experiments to compare AI-agent approaches against conventional network-management techniques.
• Collect, analyze, and visualize experimental results.
• Develop research prototypes primarily in Python and, where appropriate, C/C++ or other systems languages.
• Work with machine-learning frameworks and APIs.
• Develop interfaces between AI agents and network monitoring/control systems.
• Build reproducible experiment pipelines and research software.
• Use Git/GitHub or equivalent version-control systems and follow good software-engineering practices.
• Contribute to conference and workshop submissions.
• Present research results to interdisciplinary audiences.
• Participate in research meetings with university, national laboratory, and industry collaborators.

Skills

Python

Networking & distributed systems

AI/ML basics

Experimentation & data analysis

Communication skills

Independent & team working

Education

PhD in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, Data Science, AI/ML, or related field

Tools

Git/GitHub

PyTorch

TensorFlow

HPC tooling

Job description

The California Institute of Technology seeks a Research Scientist with expertise in networks, AI, and distributed systems to work with the SciNet project and Oak Ridge partners. You will develop AI-agent architectures, study HPC networking, and build reproducible experiments using Python and ML frameworks.

You will collaborate across university and national lab partners, publish results, and contribute to toolchains that monitor, optimize, and autonomously manage scientific networks.