Director, HPC Systems Software Engineering

NScale Global Holdings Limited; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 230,000 - 343,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

Flexible PTO

Parental leave

Retirement plan participation

Job summary

Nscale is seeking a Director of HPC Systems Engineering to lead the strategy, execution, and organisation of its HPC systems function. You will shape the platform, build and lead teams, and ensure architecture, delivery, and service quality scale with the business.

The role requires proven leadership of managers and senior engineers, strong technical judgment across Linux-based HPC infrastructures and Slurm scheduling, and the ability to balance short-term delivery with long-term platform health.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading a significant HPC systems engineering organisation.
• Strong technical credibility in software engineering for HPC systems, distributed infrastructure, Linux-based platforms, and production operations.
• Ability to operate at org scope, translating strategy into team structure, priorities, and execution.
• Experience leading through managers and senior technical leaders rather than individual contributors.
• Experience building high-performing engineering organisations, including hiring, leadership development, organisation design, and performance management.
• Strong judgement in balancing execution, platform quality, operational risk, technical quality, and long-term investment.
• Experience working closely with senior ICs to turn HPC platform strategy into practical delivery outcomes.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills for senior leadership.
• Experience owning budget, headcount, and planning decisions for a meaningful engineering area.
• Strong understanding of GPU infrastructure, HPC scheduler environments, networking constraints, and production service maturity.
• Experience with Slurm is strongly preferred; experience with Kueue or other batch scheduling technologies is valuable.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the strategy for a major HPC systems engineering area, aligned with business goals, customer needs, platform priorities, and long-term service direction.
• Translate company and engineering strategy into clear priorities, investment areas, and execution plans for the organisation.
• Ensure HPC platform architecture, operational maturity, and delivery priorities remain aligned across teams.
• Partner with Principal and Senior Staff engineers to ensure technical strategy is coherent, actionable, and executed effectively.
• Balance short-term delivery pressure against long-term platform health, team sustainability, and organisational capability.
• Lead a major HPC systems engineering organisation through managers, senior technical leaders, and team-of-teams structures.
• Own delivery outcomes, execution quality, service quality, and team health across the area.
• Shape team topology, ownership boundaries, support models, and operating mechanisms to support effective execution at scale.
• Establish the right planning, prioritisation, review, and escalation mechanisms to keep the organisation effective and accountable.
• Remove systemic blockers that reduce engineering effectiveness or create avoidable delivery or operational risk.
• Maintain sufficient technical depth to challenge designs, evaluate trade-offs, and support strong engineering judgement across the organisation.
• Ensure teams are building on sound software, systems, and operational foundations for Slurm-based and adjacent HPC services.
• Sponsor major cross-team HPC platform initiatives that require coordination, investment, or organisational change.
• Ensure reliability, performance, supportability, and operational maturity are treated as first-class requirements.
• Build a strong partnership model with adjacent cloud-native software engineering teams so shared patterns are reused effectively.
• Hire, develop, and retain strong engineering leaders, managers, and senior HPC systems engineers.
• Raise the leadership bar through coaching, feedback, succession planning, and strong performance management.
• Build a healthy partnership model between engineering managers and senior ICs.
• Strengthen organisational capability over time by addressing skill gaps, clarifying expectations, and improving how the organisation operates.
• Foster a culture of ownership, clarity, urgency, strong engineering standards, and calm operational leadership.
• Serve as a trusted partner to senior engineering, product, infrastructure, security, and business stakeholders.
• Represent the organisation in strategic planning, executive discussions, architecture reviews, customer conversations, and partner discussions where needed.
• Own budget, headcount planning, and organisational investment decisions for the area.
• Ensure the HPC systems engineering organisation is positioned to support broader company goals and changing business needs.
• Where relevant, support Nscale's technical position in the broader HPC and cloud-native ecosystem.

Skills

HPC leadership

Linux systems

Distributed infra

Stakeholder comms

Budget & headcount

Strategy to execution

Team-building

Slurm scheduling

GPU infrastructure

Batch scheduling (Kueue)

Tools

Slurm

Kueue

Job description

Director, HPC Systems Software Engineering

Houston; New York; San Francisco; Seattle

About the Role (Job Purpose)

The Director, HPC Systems Engineering is accountable for the strategy, execution, and organisational effectiveness of Nscale's HPC systems engineering function. This role operates at organisation scope and is responsible for ensuring that teams deliver reliable, scalable, and supportable HPC platform capabilities aligned with business priorities and long-term platform strategy.

This role combines organisational leadership with strong technical and operational judgement. You will shape the strategy for a major HPC platform area, build and lead the teams responsible for delivering it, and ensure that architecture, execution, and service quality remain aligned as the organisation grows.

As a Director, your impact comes through leadership of managers, senior engineers, and team-of-teams structures. You are accountable for building a healthy, high-performing organisation with the right structure, talent, operating model, and priorities to package and operate high-quality HPC systems as services.

What You’ll be Doing (Responsibilities)

Strategy, Scope & Organisational Direction

• Define and evolve the strategy for a major HPC systems engineering area, aligned with business goals, customer needs, platform priorities, and long-term service direction
• Translate company and engineering strategy into clear priorities, investment areas, and execution plans for the organisation
• Ensure HPC platform architecture, operational maturity, and delivery priorities remain aligned across teams
• Partner with Principal and Senior Staff engineers to ensure technical strategy is coherent, actionable, and executed effectively
• Balance short-term delivery pressure against long-term platform health, team sustainability, and organisational capability
• Lead a major HPC systems engineering organisation through managers, senior technical leaders, and team-of-teams structures
• Own delivery outcomes, execution quality, service quality, and team health across the area
• Shape team topology, ownership boundaries, support models, and operating mechanisms to support effective execution at scale
• Establish the right planning, prioritisation, review, and escalation mechanisms to keep the organisation effective and accountable
• Remove systemic blockers that reduce engineering effectiveness or create avoidable delivery or operational risk

Technical Oversight & Platform Quality

• Maintain sufficient technical depth to challenge designs, evaluate trade-offs, and support strong engineering judgement across the organisation
• Ensure teams are building on sound software, systems, and operational foundations for Slurm-based and adjacent HPC services
• Sponsor major cross-team HPC platform initiatives that require coordination, investment, or organisational change
• Ensure reliability, performance, supportability, and operational maturity are treated as first-class requirements
• Build a strong partnership model with adjacent cloud-native software engineering teams so shared patterns are reused effectively

People, Capability & Leadership Development

• Hire, develop, and retain strong engineering leaders, managers, and senior HPC systems engineers
• Raise the leadership bar through coaching, feedback, succession planning, and strong performance management
• Build a healthy partnership model between engineering managers and senior ICs
• Strengthen organisational capability over time by addressing skill gaps, clarifying expectations, and improving how the organisation operates
• Foster a culture of ownership, clarity, urgency, strong engineering standards, and calm operational leadership

Cross-Functional & External Leadership

• Serve as a trusted partner to senior engineering, product, infrastructure, security, and business stakeholders
• Represent the organisation in strategic planning, executive discussions, architecture reviews, customer conversations, and partner discussions where needed
• Own budget, headcount planning, and organisational investment decisions for the area
• Ensure the HPC systems engineering organisation is positioned to support broader company goals and changing business needs
• Where relevant, support Nscale's technical position in the broader HPC and cloud-native ecosystem

About You (Skills / Qualifications)

• Proven experience leading a significant HPC systems, platform engineering, or infrastructure-heavy engineering organisation
• Strong technical credibility in software engineering for HPC systems, distributed infrastructure, Linux-based platforms, and production operations
• Demonstrated ability to operate at org scope, translating business and engineering strategy into team structure, priorities, and execution
• Strong track record of leading through managers and senior technical leaders rather than relying primarily on individual contribution
• Experience building high-performing engineering organisations, including hiring, leadership development, organisation design, and performance management
• Strong judgement in balancing execution, platform quality, operational risk, technical quality, and long-term investment
• Experience working closely with senior ICs to turn HPC platform strategy into practical delivery outcomes
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to explain priorities, trade-offs, and constraints clearly to senior leadership
• Experience owning budget, headcount, and planning decisions for a meaningful engineering area
• Strong understanding of GPU infrastructure, HPC scheduler environments, networking constraints, and production service maturity
• Experience with Slurm is strongly preferred; experience with Kueue or other batch scheduling technologies is valuable

The range below reflects the base salary for the position. Actual compensation may vary based on job-related factors such as skill set, experience, education, and location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for bonus, equity, and/or commission programs. Nscale may offer a competitive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, flexible paid time off, parental leave, and retirement plan participation.

Salary Range

$230,000 - $343,333 USD

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