HPC Architect

Allergan; Chicago, Northern (IL, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

AbbVie Information Research seeks a High Performance Computing Architect to lead the design and evolution of on‑premises, cloud, and hybrid HPC platforms. You will guide compute, GPU, networking, storage, and software services, ensuring secure, scalable, and cost‑effective solutions for R&D workloads.

The role requires deep Linux/HPC knowledge, strong Slurm experience, and DevOps practices, with leadership to mentor teams and drive technology strategy in a regulated enterprise environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, IT, or related field with years of experience; Master’s or PhD with fewer years combined is acceptable.
• Leadership experience to guide technical teams and projects.
• Expert knowledge of Linux, HPC compute and GPU architectures, MPI, and hardware lifecycle management.
• Strong experience with Slurm scheduling, GPUs, and performance optimization.
• Experience integrating security, identity services, and vulnerability management in enterprise IT.

Responsibilities

• Serve as technical architect for on-premises, cloud, and hybrid HPC environments; manage lifecycle and cost.
• Architect and evolve all aspects of scientific HPC platforms and related processes.
• Design, implement, and support HPC compute, networking, and storage infrastructure.
• Administer and optimize Slurm including GPU scheduling, accounting, and troubleshooting.
• Establish secure container environments using Apptainer/Singularity and Docker workflows.
• Lead architecture reviews, vendor engagements, and governance; mentor engineering teams.
• Partner with R&D to create solutions for research workloads.

Skills

Linux HPC

Slurm

NVIDIA GPUs

CUDA

MPI

DevOps

Automation

Python

Cloud computing

Security

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science / IT / related field

Tools

Apptainer/Singularity

Docker-compatible workflows

Posit Workbench/Connect/Package Manager

Job description

Company Description

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

Job Description

AbbVie Information Research (IR) Scientific and Cloud Computing team is seeking a highly motivated High Performance Computing (HPC) Architect to provide technical leadership for scientific and R&D computing environments. This role is responsible for architecting and evolving on-premises, cloud, and hybrid HPC platforms, including compute, GPU, networking, storage, workload management, containers, automation, security, and scientific software services. The successful candidate will have strong hands-on experience with HPC infrastructure, AWS, and hybrid cloud environments, Slurm, infrastructure as code, automation, DevOps practices, and enterprise IT operations. The HPC Architect will guide the design, implementation, lifecycle management, and support of secure, scalable, reliable, and cost-effective solutions while partnering with R&D stakeholders and fostering collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical architect for AbbVie IR’s on-premises, cloud, and hybrid HPC based scientific-computing environments. Responsible for architecture, standards, infrastructure (software and hardware) lifecycle, evaluation of POC, capacity planning, and cost management.
• Architect and continuously evolve all aspects of scientific HPC computing platforms, including operational and maintenance processes.
• Design, implement, and support HPC compute and networking infrastructure - compute, networking, and storage.
• Administer and optimize Slurm workload management, including partitions, queues, priorities, fair-share, reservations, resource limits, GPU scheduling, accounting, job troubleshooting, performance tuning, and integration with Posit and other research platforms.
• Establish secure, reproducible container and scientific software environments using Apptainer/Singularity, Docker-compatible workflows, environment modules, compilers, MPI, CUDA, Python, R, and application dependencies.
• Assist with the architecture and support of Posit Workbench, Posit Connect, Posit Package Manager, and related analytics platforms, integrating them with Slurm, Active Directory, storage, GPUs, and scientific software.
• Implement secure identity and access management in accordance with AbbVie security SOPs and applicable industry standards. Architect, implement, and support vulnerability-management processes and remediation efforts.
• Lead efforts to automate provisioning, configuration, patching, testing, monitoring, remediation, and lifecycle activities.
• Maintain observability metrics, architecture diagrams, inventories, dependency maps, configuration standards, runbooks, support procedures, and end-of-life plans while addressing technical debt, operational risks, and capacity constraints. Lead the development of appropriate reporting and monitoring tools and dashboards.
• Lead design and incident reviews, vendor engagements, proofs of concept, capacity planning, and implementation governance; provide technical direction and mentorship to engineering and partner teams.
• Partner with R&D to create appropriate solutions for research workloads.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, IT, or related field with 7 years of experience; OR Master’s Degree with 6 years of experience; OR PhD 2 years' experience.
• Respective years of experience in application program development.
• Leadership experience is required, including the ability to guide, collaborate with and influence technical teams, projects, and workstreams both within and outside the organizational structure. Demonstrated ability to balance technical depth with people leadership and stakeholder management.
• Expert knowledge of Linux, HPC compute and GPU architectures, CPU/memory/NUMA/PCIe design, MPI, NVIDIA GPUs, CUDA, MIG, node provisioning, firmware, drivers, and hardware lifecycle management.
• Strong experience with Slurm, including partitions, queues, scheduling policies, resource management, GPU scheduling, accounting, troubleshooting, and performance optimization.
• Strong knowledge of HPC networking, including Mellanox/NVIDIA InfiniBand, RDMA, Aruba switching, Ethernet, VLANs, routing, segmentation, subnet management, monitoring, and low-latency communications.
• Experience with high-performance and distributed storage, including Weka or comparable platforms, Lustre, NFS, CIFS/SMB, storage gateways, quotas, permissions, data movement, replication, backup, archival, and recovery.
• Experience integrating Active Directory or equivalent identity services with SSH, SSSD, sudo, service accounts, security groups, filesystem permissions, and least-privilege access models.
• Experience with Apptainer/Singularity, Docker-compatible workflows, container security, reproducibility, GPU/MPI enablement, image management, and scientific software environments using modules, compilers, Python, R, CUDA, and related dependencies.
• Experience supporting interactive research platforms such as Posit Workbench, Posit Connect, Jupyter, or comparable tools, including integration with Slurm, GPUs, identity services, storage, and software environments.
• Experience architecting cloud and hybrid HPC solutions, including networking, security, identity, provisioning, storage, autoscaling, infrastructure as code, workload placement, cost management, monitoring, and lifecycle operations.
• Strong scripting, automation, and DevOps skills.
• Knowledge of observability, centralized logging, alerting, incident response, root-cause analysis, capacity planning, performance engineering, cybersecurity, vulnerability management, encryption, patching, and access governance.
• Experience creating architecture diagrams, technical standards, operating models, runbooks, migration plans, lifecycle strategies, and executive-level recommendations.
• Experience working in Data Science, Life Sciences, or Pharmaceutical industry working in regulated or enterprise IT environments.

Preferred

• Work experience in the pharmaceutical industry preferred.

Additional Information

Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law:

• The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of this posting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location, and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future.
• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.
• This job is eligible to participate in our long-term incentive programs.

Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employer remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law.

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community. Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.

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