Senior Research Computing Systems Engineer

Uvmjobs; Burlington, Northern (VT, KY); Hybrid; USD 80,000 - 116,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Vermont's Research Computing team is seeking a Senior Research Computing Systems Engineer to maintain and expand the Vermont Advanced Computing Center's HPC infrastructure, including multi-thousand core clusters and GPU resources. You will work with VACC IT staff to install, troubleshoot, and support research software such as Slurm and OpenOnDemand.

You will evaluate faculty needs, adjust compute resources, and help bring HPC into classrooms.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field or equivalent experience.
• 5 years Linux Systems Admin/Engineer experience.
• Strong knowledge of Linux, networking, and shell scripting.
• Expertise with debugging at system and network level.
• Excellent customer service, communication, and teamwork.
• Ability to learn new technologies and apply them.
• Experience with infrastructure as code concepts.
• Proficiency in at least one systems programming language (C/C++/Python, etc.).

Responsibilities

• Support HPC hardware, storage, cluster software, and researcher tooling.
• Install, maintain, and troubleshoot research software (Slurm, OpenOnDemand).
• Assess faculty needs and adjust compute resources for research and teaching.
• Collaborate with IT staff and researchers to expand HPC in classrooms.
• Develop scripts for cluster administration and user support.

Skills

Linux systems

Shell scripting

Programming languages

Debugging

Customer service

Infrastructure as code

Team collaboration

OpenOn Demand

Education

Bachelor’s degree in STEM

Tools

Slurm

OpenOnDemand

Lmod

Spack

CUDA

Ansible

VMware

KVM

MongoDB

Job description

Senior Research Computing Systems Engineer

The University of Vermont is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other category legally protected by federal or state law.

For information on safety and security at the University of Vermont, see the annual security report by clicking on the Clery Act button in the sidebar menu.

Finalists for positions at UVM may be subject to a criminal background check.

For classified staff positions, actual hiring pay dependent on current competitor market conditions, comparable campus peer(s) at time of hire, and candidate's experience level and length.

Posting Summary

This Research Computing Systems Engineer position provides expert support for the Vermont Advanced Computing Center’s ( VACC ) research computing systems and helps build and maintain state-of-the-art high performance computing ( HPC ) solutions for our researchers. This position joins a team that supports the HPC hardware, large-scale storage systems, cluster software, and researcher software in the VACC .

The VACC has four research clusters, including multi-thousand core "big compute" resources and GPU -focused resources, and a massive in-memory database cluster. This position will support the VACC computing and storage hardware infrastructure, as well as research computing software such as Slurm, OpenOnDemand and related technologies. This position directly supports UVM’s goal of enhancing IT resources and infrastructure available to the UVM research community.

The position will work with other VACC IT staff to install, maintain, and support research software and tools used by the UVM research community. In collaboration with Research Computing Facilitators, this position will respond to a wide range of requests submitted by researchers, providing guidance and expertise in software installation and troubleshooting.

This position will assess the needs of our faculty, helping adjust the VACC compute resources to better meet their needs for research and academic purposes. The position will actively support academic use of VACC resources, working with faculty to expand HPC into the classroom.

Scripting is an important skill for this position, both for cluster administration, and for helping users take advantage of the VACC cluster. A change to any part of the VACC resources is likely to affect hundreds of users, working on millions of dollars of research, so systematic attention to detail, careful planning and judgement are critical.

Minimum Qualifications (or equivalent combination of education and experience)

• Bachelor’s degree in STEM related field.
• 5 years of experience as a Linux Systems Administrator/Engineer.
• A thorough knowledge of Linux operating systems, network architecture and Linux shell scripting.
• Expertise with system and network debugging.
• Excellent customer service ethic, effective communication skills and collaborative approach to teamwork.
• Skilled at learning and evaluating new technologies and ability to determine if appropriate for adoption.
• An appreciation for infrastructure as code.
• Ability to work effectively on team and independent projects, with ability to self-direct and adjust to shifts in priorities.
• Expertise with at least one systems programming language (C, C++, Python, Perl, Rust, etc…).

Desirable Qualifications

• Significant prior experience with high performance computing systems and scientific software.
• Expertise with HPC technologies, such as job schedulers like Slurm, module systems like Lmod, package managers like Spack, CUDA .
• Experience with Ansible as a deployment and orchestration framework.
• Experience with virtualization and/or container technologies (VMware, Proxmox, KVM , Podman, Apptainer).
• Experience with MongoDB in a sharded architecture.
• Low latency networking experience (e.g., InfiniBand, DOCA - OFED
• Experience compiling, installing, and running open-source software, including software using MPI libraries
• Experience in debugging and tuning of software applications on HPC clusters, experience with common scientific libraries and applications.
• Experience deploying open-weight AI models.
• Experience deploying Open OnDemand, Jupyter Notebook and supporting technologies.
• Clustered filesystem expertise (e.g., GPFS ).

Anticipated Pay Range $80,000-$116,000

Other Information

Special Conditions

Special Conditions A probationary period may be required, Occasional evening and/or weekends required (if non-exempt position, may result in overtime), This position is eligible for a hybrid schedule with an option to split time between campus and elsewhere, in accordance with the university telecommuting policy, This position is eligible for full-time telework in accordance with the university telecommuting policy, Background Check required for this position

FLSA

FLSA Exempt

Union Position

Union Position Yes, UVMSU

Position Information

Posting Number S6326PO

Position Number 00023789

Percent of Full-Time 1.0

Standard Hours at 1.0 FTE 37.5

Term (months per year) 12

Supplemental Questions

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