HPC Data Center Operational Lead

HPC Infrastructure Operations Lead

Location:

Chicago or New York (On‑site 5 days/week; regular travel to HPC data center sites required)

Jump's HPC infrastructure powers some of the most demanding computational workloads in the industry. As our HPC footprint grows, we need a seasoned operations leader to own the reliability, standards, and day‑to‑day excellence of these environments.

• Team Leadership & Organizational Ownership
  • Lead and manage data center site leads and their teams across multiple HPC facilities; site leads report directly to this role.
  • Recruit, mentor, and develop team members while conducting performance reviews and building a culture of operational rigor.
  • Direct onsite contractors by providing clear scope and validating completed work.
• HPC Data Center Standards, Processes & Preventative Maintenance
  • Develop, document, and enforce operational standards and procedures for Jump's HPC data centers covering power, cooling, cabling, and hardware lifecycle.
  • Design and own the preventative maintenance program, including scheduled inspections, component replacements, and firmware/capacity reviews to minimize unplanned downtime.
  • Drive continuous improvement of operational processes and pursue automation—including AI‑driven approaches—to reduce manual effort and human error.
• Critical Facility Systems Expertise
  • Serve as the subject matter authority on HPC data center power distribution, power striping strategies, and failover/redundancy configurations.
  • Own expertise across air cooling, liquid cooling (direct‑to‑chip, rear‑door, CDU‑based), and hybrid cooling architectures.
  • Maintain deep knowledge of environmental monitoring and controls (temperature, humidity, airflow, leak detection) and ensure systems remain within design parameters.
• Monitoring & Incident Response
  • Own the HPC data center monitoring strategy end‑to‑end: define what is monitored, set alerting thresholds, and ensure comprehensive visibility into facility and hardware health.
  • Leverage AI tools to analyze telemetry data, identify failure patterns, predict potential issues, and accelerate root cause analysis during incidents.
  • Lead critical incident response and drive root cause analysis and corrective actions to prevent recurrence.
  • Establish and track operational KPIs including availability, mean time to repair, and efficiency metrics.
• Server & Switch Hardware Expertise
  • Maintain deep, hands‑on knowledge of server hardware architectures including multi‑socket platforms, GPU/accelerator configurations, memory subsystems, NVMe/storage controllers, BMC/IPMI management, and firmware lifecycle.
  • Maintain deep, hands‑on knowledge of network switch hardware including line cards, optics/transceivers, switch fabrics, and platform‑specific diagnostics for Arista and Cisco platforms.
  • Evaluate new hardware platforms, drive hardware qualification and acceptance testing, and provide informed recommendations on hardware selection.
• Hardware Break‑Fix
  • Own the overall hardware break‑fix function across all HPC sites, ensuring rapid diagnosis and resolution for servers, GPUs, network equipment, storage, and facility infrastructure.
  • Diagnose complex hardware failures at the component level—CPUs, DIMMs, GPUs, NICs, PSUs, fans, drives, switch line cards, and optics—and direct the team to resolve efficiently.
  • Establish escalation paths, SLA targets, and reporting for hardware failures.
• Inventory & Spares Management
  • Own inventory processes and spares tracking across all HPC facilities, ensuring critical spares are stocked, tracked, and replenished to meet availability targets.
  • Maintain accurate asset records for all serialized and consumable inventory.
• Planning, Vendor & Budget Management
  • Conduct capacity planning for space, power, cooling, and cabling to stay ahead of growth.
  • Gather requirements and plan new hardware installations including physical placement, power/cooling needs, and cabling.
  • Manage relationships with colocation providers and hardware vendors; negotiate contracts and SLAs.
  • Develop and manage operational budgets for equipment, staffing, and facilities.
• Networking & Linux
  • Possess strong working knowledge of networking concepts including L2/L3…