HPC Systems Engineer III - Linux & Automation

Boston University; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Time Off: PTO and holidays

University retirement plan

Tuition assistance

Wellness information

Job summary

Boston University IS&T seeks a Research Computing Systems Engineer to operate a 1,000+ node HPC cluster, deploy a tiCrypt-based secure environment, and modernize monitoring and automation across the full stack. You will work with SGE, GPFS, Slurm, and virtualization technologies while collaborating with senior engineers and researchers.

The role emphasizes hands-on systems work, end-to-end automation, and a strong voice in infrastructure decisions, with partial remote work and opportunities for

Qualifications

• 3+ years of relevant work experience with a bachelor's degree, relevant post-secondary education, or a combination of these two.
• Linux systems administration experience, including OS patching, upgrades, and security maintenance.
• Experience programming in a Linux environment, preferably Bash and Python.
• Experience in multiple languages such as Perl or C is a plus.
• Ability to work with configuration management systems (e.g., Ansible, Puppet, Chef) and revision control systems (e.g., Git).
• Hands-on experience and understanding of Linux virtualization and containerization technologies (e.g., KVM, OpenStack, OpenNebula, Docker, Kubernetes).
• Strong communication, problem-solving, and teamwork skills.

Responsibilities

• Operate, maintain, and optimize the University's production HPC cluster, including a 1,000+ node bare-metal Linux deployment, the Grid Engine (SGE) scheduler, and GPFS (IBM Storage Scale) parallel file system, to keep research computing services reliable and performant.
• Contribute to the build, deployment, and operations of a new NIST 800-171–compliant secure research computing environment built on tiCrypt, including a Slurm workload manager.
• Help improve monitoring, observability, and configuration management using CI/CD pipelines, Ansible, Git, and related automation tools.
• Automate provisioning, deployment, and routine operations across the full stack, from bare metal through services.
• Identify, diagnose, and resolve complex system, storage, network, and performance issues.
• Contribute to technical documentation and share your expertise with colleagues and the research community.

Skills

Linux systems administration

Bash

Python

Perl

C

Ansible

Puppet

Chef

Git

Docker

Kubernetes

OpenStack

OpenNebula

communication

teamwork

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Ansible

Puppet

Chef

Git

Docker

Kubernetes

OpenStack

OpenNebula

Job description

Boston University IS&T seeks a Research Computing Systems Engineer to operate a 1,000+ node HPC cluster, deploy a tiCrypt-based secure environment, and modernize monitoring and automation across the full stack. You will work with SGE, GPFS, Slurm, and virtualization technologies while collaborating with senior engineers and researchers.

The role emphasizes hands-on systems work, end-to-end automation, and a strong voice in infrastructure decisions, with partial remote work and opportunities for