Principal Engineer Geospatial Computing Infrastructure

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As a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national laboratory, ORNL has an impressive 80-year legacy of addressing the nation’s most pressing challenges. Our team is made up of over 7,000 dedicated and innovative individuals! Our goal is to create an environment where a variety of perspectives and backgrounds are valued, ensuring ORNL is known as a top choice for employment.

These principles are essential for supporting our broader mission to drive scientific breakthroughs and translate them into solutions for energy, environmental, and security challenges facing the nation.

We invite applications for a Principal Engineer for Geospatial Computing Infrastructure. This dynamic and visionary leader will launch and build a next-generation Geospatial Data & Computing Center to support ORNL’s geospatial high-performance computing (HPC) research portfolio within the Geospatial Science and Human Security Division. ORNL is the nation’s geospatial research laboratory. Our scientists and engineers are breaking new ground in geospatial science and technologies, advancing the state-of-the-art and scaling science for global impacts.

From designing advanced sensing platforms and autonomous systems, to characterizing global population risk with increasing spatiotemporal clarity, to designing GeoAI models for supercomputer-scale applications, geospatial science at ORNL is establishing new horizons for global geospatial intelligence and human security. The Geospatial Science and Human Security Division is part of the National Security Sciences Directorate, where we translate and apply the latest advancements in ORNL and US scientific leadership to support the nation’s national and energy security needs.

Over the past decade ORNL has earned a strong reputation for delivering novel geospatial capabilities grounded in HPC, and this new role offers the opportunity to transform the foundations of these capabilities into a distinct center with its own mission of delivering leading-edge geospatial compute and data services, driving innovation at the intersection of computing and geospatial science, and advancing research outcomes across sponsors, disciplines and institutional partners.

The successful candidate will have the strategic mindset, technical breadth, and leadership skills to stand up a mission-driven organization, guide its evolution, manage its operations, and cultivate a world-class team. This role is both operational (managing and optimizing assets and services today) and visionary in charting the future of geospatial compute, orchestrating large‑scale investments and partnerships, and positioning ORNL as the national leader in geospatial HPC, data infrastructure, and emerging computing paradigms (edge compute, neuromorphic, quantum).

In this capacity you will be responsible for the formation of a Geospatial Data Center (GDC) built initially from current assets, then grown into a clearly demarcated resource with a growing team to support the work. Your responsibilities will include helping to define the strategic direction and the business model (service delivery + research + partnerships), establishing operating practices, building the team, and engaging sponsors and users.

You will be the face of the center internally and externally, aligning with ORNL and National Security Sciences leadership and programs, and ensuring that the center becomes a trusted advisor, partner, and innovation hub in the geospatial and HPC community.

The responsibilities of the Principal Engineer for Geospatial Computing Infrastructure will include, but are not limited to:

• Strategy & Vision:
  Develop and refine a strategic roadmap for the GDC, including defining its mission, vision, value proposition, operating model (services, research, partnerships), business case, metrics of success and growth path.
• Asset & Infrastructure Management:
  Oversee the effective integration, operation, scaling and optimization of the GDC’s compute, storage, networking and geospatial‑data assets…