Senior HPC Systems Specialist

University of North Carolina Charlotte; Charlotte (NC); On-site; USD 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

UNC Charlotte seeks a Senior HPC Systems Specialist to manage and optimize high performance computing resources. You will support production HPC clusters, deploy new capabilities, and collaborate on strategy with the University Research Computing team.

Requirements include a bachelor's degree with 4+ years in HPC, plus experience with MPI, OpenMP, CUDA, Slurm, and container workflows. RHCSA/RHCE preferred. On-site Kennedy location, Regular 40-hour weeks with some evenings.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 4+ years of progressively responsible experience designing, provisioning, administering, and supporting production HPC systems and clusters.
• Equivalency of education and work experience accepted.

Responsibilities

• Operate and maintain Research Computing facilities, including systems management and maintenance.
• Develop and deploy upgraded capabilities and support user needs.
• Contribute to technical design, strategy, and direction.
• Direct technical work of other staff when required.

Skills

MPI

OpenMP

CUDA

Compilers

Numerical libraries

EasyBuild

Spack

Lmod

Grafana

Prometheus

Slurm

Elastic Stack

NVIDIA drivers

GPU scheduling

Apptainer/Singularity

Container workflows

Education

Bachelor's degree + 4+ years

Tools

EasyBuild

Spack

Lmod

Grafana

Prometheus

Slurm

Elastic Stack

Apptainer/Singularity

Job description

Senior HPC Systems Specialist

Position Information

Position Number: 001982

Vacancy Open to: All Candidates

Working Title: Senior HPC Systems Specialist

Position Designation: EHRA Non-Faculty

Employment Type: Permanent - Full-time

Months per Year: 12

Work Schedule: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm; Monday - Friday with occasional evening and weekend hours required, as necessary.

Hours per week: 40

FLSA Status: Exempt

Division: OneIT

Department: Office of OneIT (Adm)

Work Location: Kennedy

Primary Purpose of Department: The Office of OneIT provides highly reliable information technology infrastructure, tools, and services to empower the University to achieve its academic, research, administrative, and service goals. The Research Computing group within OneIT provides researchers at the University with powerful High Performance Computing (HPC) services, in addition to educational HPC resources dedicated to teaching academic classes.

Primary Purpose of Position: This Senior HPC Systems Specialist serves as a key team member reporting to the Director of University Research Computing. This position performs critical systems management and other operational duties, with responsibilities and objectives delegated by the Director. This position contributes to shaping the strategic direction of University Research Computing. At times, this position may provide leadership or supervision of the technical work of other staff members.

Summary of Position Responsibilities: This position is responsible for supporting the ongoing operation of the Research Computing facilities, including systems management and maintenance, developing and deploying upgraded capability, and interacting with and supporting users. The position is also responsible for supporting technical design and strategy development. The position also includes responsibility for directing the technical work of other members of staff.

Minimum Education/Experience:

• Bachelor's degree and 4+ years of progressively responsible experience designing, provisioning, administering, and supporting production HPC systems and clusters; or
• An equivalent combination of education and relevant work experience.

Preferred Education, Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Experience installing, maintaining, and optimizing HPC scientific applications, libraries, and toolchains (MPI, OpenMP, CUDA, compilers, numerical libraries).
• Proficiency with HPC software management tools such as EasyBuild and Spack, and environment module systems such as Lmod.
• Experience supporting researchers in higher education or research environments by troubleshooting job failures, optimizing workflows, debugging application issues, and providing technical guidance.
• Experience with HPC monitoring, logging, and accounting tools, including Grafana, Prometheus, Slurm accounting, Elastic Stack, or similar monitoring platforms.
• Experience supporting GPU computing environments, including NVIDIA drivers, CUDA, GPU scheduling, monitoring, and performance optimization; familiarity with AMD ROCm is desirable.
• Experience with container technologies in HPC environments, including Apptainer/Singularity, and supporting reproducible containerized research workflows.

Preferred Certifications/Licenses:

• RHCSA
• RHCE

Posting Open Date: 08/19/2026

Open Until Filled: Yes

Benefits

• UNC Charlotte Benefits Information: https://hr.charlotte.edu/benefits/benefits-overview/