Junior HPC Applications Engineer

Parallel Works, Inc.; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, vision, dental coverage

401(k) with company match

Short term disability

Generous paid vacation and sick time

Job summary

Parallel Works, Inc. is hiring a Junior HPC Applications Engineer to support researchers and engineers running workloads on on-premises clusters, cloud, and GPU providers. You will handle first line support, build and tune Slurm scripts, and work with a senior engineer to develop software stacks for users.

The role involves onboarding new users, maintaining environments and modules, and contributing to documentation and FAQs. A rotation may require coverage outside standard US business hours.

Qualifications

• 2+ years supporting users on Linux systems or running scientific/mML workloads on a cluster.
• Comfort with the Linux command line and building software from source.
• Writing and debugging batch scripts under Slurm, PBS, or LSF.
• Proficiency with Python and either ML framework or domain scientific code.

Responsibilities

• First line support: own tickets, reproduce issues, resolve or escalate with diagnosis.
• Write, debug, and tune Slurm submission scripts with users (GPU requests, arrays, sizing).
• Build and install user software under senior review; maintain modules and containers.
• Onboarding: guide new users through access and storage, first jobs when clusters come online.
• Create user guides and FAQ entries to cut repeat tickets.
• Participation in coverage rotation including outside normal business hours.

Skills

Python

Linux CLI

Slurm scripting

Documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

Spack

EasyBuild

Lmod

Containers (Docker/Singularity/Apptainer)

Job description

About Parallel Works

Parallel Works builds and operates ACTIVATE, a control plane for high performance computing and AI. Our customers run large scientific and AI workloads across their own on-premises clusters, Government and commercial cloud, and commercial GPU providers, and ACTIVATE gives them one way in to all of it. The high security boundary is authorized at Impact Level 5, with FIPS validated cryptography and STIG hardening throughout.

The work reaches most fields that depend on computing at scale: weather and climate forecasting, defense and intelligence programs, aerospace and structural analysis, molecular and materials science, energy, and AI research. A quarter here can include standing up a GPU cluster for one of those communities, federating a laboratory's existing on-premises system with burst capacity it did not have before, and getting a domain code written decades ago to run on current hardware.

Customer success sets our priorities. We are a small engineering company, so engineers here work directly with the people using the systems and carry a problem from the first report through to the fix. This is what we call mission engineering: understanding what a customer is trying to accomplish and why the computing matters to it.

About the role

Parallel Works is hiring a Junior HPC Applications Engineer to support the researchers and engineers running work on our platforms. The role handles first line support: build failures, batch script problems, environment issues, and the first diagnosis on failed jobs.

It suits someone who has run scientific or machine learning workloads on a cluster as a user and wants to move to the other side of the ticket. Our users work across on-premises clusters, cloud, and commercial GPU providers, and the same question often has a different answer in each. The role works alongside a senior applications engineer, building software stacks for users and handling second tier diagnosis after about a year.

What you will do

• First line support:own incoming tickets, reproduce the problem, resolve what you can, and escalation with diagnosis attached.
• Batch scripts:write, debug, and tune Slurm submission scripts with users, including GPU requests, array jobs, and resource sizing.
• Environments and modules:build and install user requested software under senior review, and maintain module and container environments.
• Onboarding:walk new users through access, storage layout, and first jobs when a cluster comes online.
• Documentation:user guides and FAQ entries that cut repeat tickets.
• Coverage rotation:a support coverage rotation. Some engagements carry coverage outside standard United States business hours, agreed in advance.

• 2 or more years supporting users on Linux systems, or running scientific or machine learning workloads on a cluster as a practitioner.
• Comfort on the Linux command line, including building software from source.
• Writing and debugging batch scripts under Slurm, PBS, or LSF.
• Proficiency with Python, plus either a machine learning framework or a domain scientific code.
• Writing a complete, correct answer to a user in plain language.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Spack, EasyBuild, or Lmod.
• Multi-GPU or multi-node job experience.
• Use of containers such as Apptainer, Singularity, or Docker.
• Exposure to any profiling or debugging tooling.
• Graduate coursework or a research computing background, or time on a university or laboratory HPC help desk.

Medical, vision, and dental coverage, a 401(k) with company match, short term disability, and generous paid vacation and sick time.

Equal employment opportunity

Parallel Works is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.