Research Computing Lead (SYS ADM 4 TX)
University of California - Davis
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Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
University of California, Davis invites applications for a senior Research Computing Lead in LS IT Services, Davis, CA. The role provides technical leadership for research computing infrastructure across the College’s units and partnerships, focusing on sustainable service models, security alignment, and cross-team collaboration to support faculty and researchers.
The position balances research flexibility with institutional security obligations, establishes service tiers, and guides complex
Qualifications
- Advanced experience administering research or infrastructure systems in production or research environments, including installation, configuration, troubleshooting, patching, account/access management, network configuration, storage integration, service management, and lifecycle support for physical servers, virtual machines, workstations, and/or storage platforms across one or more operating systems.
- Demonstrated experience building or operating repeatable systems management practices using automation, configuration management, endpoint management, or scripting tools such as Puppet, Ansible, BigFix, shell scripting, Python, Git, or comparable tools.
- Demonstrated experience implementing security and operational controls for infrastructure, platform, or research systems, including identity and access management, least privilege, vulnerability remediation, endpoint/security tooling, logging, monitoring, backup coordination, incident response, or risk/exception tracking.
- Experience leading complex technical work across multiple stakeholders or teams, including setting technical standards, coordinating implementation work, resolving competing priorities, documenting decisions, and reporting progress, risks, or tradeoffs to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Experience consulting with customers, researchers, faculty, business partners, or equivalent stakeholders to translate specialized technical requirements into supportable infrastructure, service, or operational solutions.
- Demonstrated knowledge of research computing architecture concepts, including workload placement, system lifecycle management, storage and backup considerations, and the tradeoffs between local infrastructure, shared services, and cloud platforms.
- Demonstrated ability to produce clear technical standards, procedures, inventories, dashboards, or other documentation and to communicate risks, requirements, and recommendations effectively
Responsibilities
- 35% - Research Computing Program Leadership and Service Model Development
- 30% - Research Computing Systems Engineering, Automation, and Standardization
- 20% - Researcher Engagement, Architecture Consultation, and Workload Placement
- 15% - Information Security, Risk, Compliance, and Operational Governance
Skills
Tools
Job description
#CA-PS THIS IS AVAILABLE TO EMPLOYEES IN THE DEPARTMENT OF L&S IT SERVICES ONLY.
Under broad direction of the Executive Director of Information Technology, the Research Computing Lead provides technical, operational, and program leadership for research computing infrastructure across the College of Letters and Science. This position leads the development of a sustainable, supportable, and security-aligned research computing service model for research servers, research workstations, network-attached and other research storage, and related infrastructure used by faculty, researchers, graduate students, and staff.
The Research Computing Lead serves as the senior technical authority and service owner for LS IT research computing standards, lifecycle practices, and operational models. The position leads the virtual Research Computing Support Team; coordinates the work of systems administrators, desktop engineering staff, storage and infrastructure specialists, and senior desktop support analysts supporting research-intensive departments; and establishes repeatable practices for inventory, intake, configuration management, patching, endpoint protection, vulnerability management, monitoring, logging, backup, access control, exception management, and researcher-facing service documentation.
The role balances research flexibility with institutional, campus, UC, and sponsor security obligations. It partners with faculty and research groups to preserve the ability to conduct specialized research while moving research systems out of isolated, one-off support patterns and into documented service tiers with clear ownership, support boundaries, technical baselines, lifecycle planning, and risk treatment. The position also collaborates with campus partners, including central IT, information security, high-performance computing, cloud, networking, storage, and research support organizations, to help researchers choose appropriate local, campus HPC, cloud, storage, or shared infrastructure options.
This is a senior individual contributor and technical leadership role. It does not require direct supervisory authority, but it is responsible for setting direction, coordinating work across teams, leading complex technical initiatives, advising leadership, and ensuring measurable progress toward the College's research computing support and compliance goals.
8/26/2026 at 11:59pm
THIS IS AVAILABLE TO EMPLOYEES IN THE DEPARTMENT OF L&S IT SERVICES ONLY.
Minimum Qualifications - For full consideration, applicants are encouraged to upload license and/or certification if required of the position
- No Minimum Education required.
- Advanced experience administering research or infrastructure systems in production or research environments, including installation, configuration, troubleshooting, patching, account/access management, network configuration, storage integration, service management, and lifecycle support for physical servers, virtual machines, workstations, and/or storage platforms across one or more operating systems.
- Demonstrated experience building or operating repeatable systems management practices using automation, configuration management, endpoint management, or scripting tools such as Puppet, Ansible, BigFix, shell scripting, Python, Git, or comparable tools.
- Demonstrated experience implementing security and operational controls for infrastructure, platform, or research systems, including identity and access management, least privilege, vulnerability remediation, endpoint/security tooling, logging, monitoring, backup coordination, incident response, or risk/exception tracking.
- Experience leading complex technical work across multiple stakeholders or teams, including setting technical standards, coordinating implementation work, resolving competing priorities, documenting decisions, and reporting progress, risks, or tradeoffs to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Experience consulting with customers, researchers, faculty, business partners, or equivalent stakeholders to translate specialized technical requirements into supportable infrastructure, service, or operational solutions.
- Demonstrated knowledge of research computing architecture concepts, including workload placement, system lifecycle management, storage and backup considerations, and the tradeoffs between local infrastructure, shared services, and cloud platforms.
- Demonstrated ability to produce clear technical standards, procedures, inventories, dashboards, or other documentation and to communicate risks, requirements, and recommendations effectively
- Experience supporting research computing, scientific computing, academic research, laboratory, national lab, medical research, or other environments with specialized software, instruments, workflows, researcher-administered systems, or shared research infrastructure.
- Experience designing or supporting high-performance computing, cloud, containerized, or portable research workflows using tools or platforms such as Slurm, Apptainer/Singularity, environment modules, AWS, Azure, GCP, or comparable services.
- Experience supporting GPU, AI/ML, CPU-intensive, statistical, imaging, compiler/toolchain, Fortran, MATLAB, R, Python, CUDA, or other discipline-specific research software environments.
- Experience designing, operating, or supporting shared research storage or backup services, including network-attached storage, NFS, NAS/SAN, ZFS, TrueNAS, snapshots, replication, restore testing, quotas, retention, or comparable data protection workflows.
- Experience applying security frameworks, policy requirements, or compliance expectations such as UC IS-3, CIS Controls, NIST, ISO, sponsor security requirements, or comparable standards to infrastructure or research systems.
- Familiarity with ITIL or other IT Service Management (ITSM) methodology. Interpersonal communication skills to clearly and effectively interact with individuals of varying ages and cultural backgrounds and perspectives to research, secure, and/or provide information to clarify situations, resolve problems and/or training/guidance to other staff members.
- 35% - Research Computing Program Leadership and Service Model Development
- 30% - Research Computing Systems Engineering, Automation, and Standardization
- 20% - Researcher Engagement, Architecture Consultation, and Workload Placement
- 15% - Information Security, Risk, Compliance, and Operational Governance
The Letters and Science Information Technology Services Unit (LS IT) within the College of Letters and Science provides information technology services and support to departments, programs, centers, faculty, staff, students, and external clients across the College. LS IT provides service desk and desktop support, desktop engineering, systems administration for servers and infrastructure, web and application development, research IT support, and security, risk, and compliance services.
The College of Letters and Science includes a broad range of disciplines in the humanities, arts, cultural studies, social sciences, mathematical sciences, physical sciences, and interdisciplinary research areas. Research computing needs vary significantly across these areas, including CPU-intensive workflows, GPU and AI/ML workloads, data acquisition systems, laboratory instrumentation, statistical and behavioral research environments, scientific software stacks, shared storage, local servers, cloud-hosted infrastructure, and campus high-performance computing resources.
Salary or Pay Range: $107,511.12/yr. - $212,516.64/yr.
- Salary Frequency: Annual
- Salary Grade: STEPS
- UC Job Title: SYS ADM 4 TX
- UC Job Code: 006375
- Number of Positions: 1
- Appointment Type: Staff: Career
- Percentage of Time: 100% Fixed
- Shift (Work Schedule): Mon-Fri (8am - 5pm)
- Location: Davis, CA
- Union Representation: TX-Technical Professionals
- Benefits Eligible: Yes
- This position is hybrid (mix of on-site and remote work)
Outstanding benefits and perks are among the many rewards of working for the University of California. UC Davis offers a full range of benefits, resources and programs to help you bring your best self to work, as well as to help you and your family achieve your health, wellness, financial and career goals. Learn more about the benefits below and eligibility by visiting UCnet Benefits Page or Benefits Summary for UC Davis Health Employees or Benefits Summary for UC Davis Employees.
- High quality and low-cost medical plans to choose from to fit your family's needs
- UC pays for dental and vision coverage for you and your family
- Retirement plans for eligible employees including Pension and other Retirement Saving Plans
- Supplemental insurance offered including additional life, short/long term disability, pet insurance, legal coverage, accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity
- Pregnancy and Parental Leave, Family & Medical Leave, Adoption Assistance and Pay for Family Care and Bonding for eligible employees
- Lactation Support Program and Family Care discounts and resources
- Employee Well-being resources and programming to support thriving in all aspects of employee's lives
- On-site Employee Assistance Program including access to free mental health services
- Generous amount of paid Holidays annually as outlined in the UC Policies or Collective Bargaining Agreements
- Paid Time Off/Vacation/Sick Time as outlined in the UC Policies or Collective Bargaining Agreements
- Continuing Education (CE) allowance and Staff Education Reimbursement Program for eligible employees
- Access to free professional development courses and learning opportunities for personal and professional growth
- Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Qualified Employer and Student Loan Debt Counseling Program for eligible employees
- Standing - Frequent 3 to 6 Hours
- Walking - Frequent 3 to 6 Hours
- Sitting - Frequent 3 to 6 Hours
- Lifting/Carrying 0-25 Lbs - Occasional Up to 3 Hours
- Lifting/Carrying 26-50 lbs - Never 0 Hours
- Lifting/Carrying over 50 lbs - Never 0 Hours
- Pushing/Pulling 0-25 Lbs - Occasional Up to 3 Hours
- Pushing/Pulling 26-50 lbs - Never 0 Hours
- Pushing/Pulling over 50 lbs - Never 0 Hours
- Bending/Stooping - Occasional Up to 3 Hours
- Squatting/Kneeling - Occasional Up to 3 Hours
- Twisting - Never 0 Hours
- Climbing (e.g., stairs or ladders) - Never 0 Hours
- Reaching overhead - Never 0 Hours
- Keyboard use/repetitive motion - Occasional Up to 3 Hours
- Chemicals, dust, gases, or fumes - Never 0 Hours
- Loud noise levels - Never 0 Hours
- Marked changes in humidity or temperature - Never 0 Hours
- Microwave/Radiation - Never 0 Hours
- Operating motor vehicles and/or equipment - Never 0 Hours
- Extreme Temperatures - Never 0 Hours
- Uneven Surfaces or Elevations - Never 0 Hours
- Sustained attention and concentration - Frequent 3 to 6 Hours
- Complex problem solving/reasoning - Frequent 3 to 6 Hours
- Ability to organize & prioritize - Frequent 3 to 6 Hours
- Communication skills - Frequent 3 to 6 Hours
- Numerical skills - Occasional Up to 3 Hours
- Constant Interaction - Occasional Up to 3 Hours
- Customer/Patient Contact - Occasional Up to 3 Hours
- Multiple Concurrent Tasks - Frequent 3 to 6 Hours
UC Davis is a smoke and tobacco free campus effective January 1, 2014. Smoking, the use of smokeless tobacco products, and the use of unregulated nicotine products (e-cigarettes) will be strictly prohibited on any UC Davis owned or leased property, indoors and outdoors, including parking lots and residential space.
Uphold the UC Davis Principles of Community in all interactions. Work in a hybrid environment, with on-site work required for infrastructure, server room, lab, or in-person collaboration needs. Work occasional evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays to minimize disruption, perform maintenance, respond to incidents, or support urgent research computing needs. Participate in on-call, escalation, or emergency response processes as assigned. Work in office, server room, lab, and research environments with
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