Network Engineer

Network Engineer I Job Summary

The Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) is a cornerstone of innovation at the University of Utah. We play a vital role in enabling scientific research at the campus, state, and national levels by providing large‑scale computational and data services, alongside creative network services. From climate modeling to drug discovery, CHPC empowers researchers to solve complex problems through a massive ecosystem of 50,000+ CPU cores, 1,000+ GPU resources, and 50 PB+ of storage.

CHPC seeks a network engineer to support connectivity both internally and externally to multiple remote environments. The position is full‑time staff with benefits and requires 90+% on‑site attendance. The primary work location is the University of Utah Downtown Data Center with associated work at the home office on the university campus. CHPC also has a small presence at a data center in St. George,

UT where occasional work may need to be performed.

The network engineer will be responsible for installation, maintenance, and documentation of the CHPC Ethernet and Infini Band networks. This work involves all aspects of network design, engineering, and administration. Physical work includes cabling, fiber plant, equipment installation, physical maintenance, relocation and equipment retirement at all CHPC locations. Administration includes configuring and monitoring network equipment, initial setup, daily changes, maintenance, and troubleshooting necessary to provide a stable, reliable, and resilient network.

The engineer will also maintain CHPC’s network segments that require high security controls as part of CHPC’s regulated research computing environments.

At CHPC, we foster a positive, collaborative environment. As part of the team, you will have the opportunity to interact and cross‑train with diverse technical groups—including computation, storage, virtualization/cloud, software engineering, networking, and user services—while being encouraged to experiment and innovate with emerging technologies.

The network engineer will work with other network colleagues and engage closely with CHPC staff to help design and provide solutions that will support computational research throughout the university. This work requires the ability to listen and learn about project requirements and then work collaboratively to provide solutions that are agreeable to CHPC staff, management, and users. This work also requires the ability to produce comprehensive and accurate documentation with attention to detail.

The successful candidate will have experience working on various networking equipment using command line interfaces and experience automating these interfaces. The successful candidate will have, or be able to develop, skills across vendor products from Cisco, Arista, Dell SONiC, HP, and Palo Alto. The successful candidate will use these skills and creativity to collaborate with and support fellow network staff, and CHPC system administrators, software engineers, and may also interact with students, research faculty, and other users throughout the campus and state.

Comfort with teamwork and communication, thoroughness, attention to detail, and a willingness to train others are important assets.

• Racking, installing, and cabling switches and servers in the data center.
• Cabling between different environments in the data center.
• Documenting all switch assets appropriately in the central portal.
• Working on scheduled or emergency downtimes in tight collaboration and support of the various system admin teams. This may occasionally involve long hours beyond the usual business hours to assist in resolving critical issues.

• Working closely with the monitoring team and students to capture network telemetry, various counters, Net Flows, and other statistics.
• Working with monitoring team, sysadmin teams, and students to visualize environments appropriately for active maintenance.
• Developing skills with tools such as perfSONAR to support large bandwidth transfers across the WAN between peer institutions and the cloud.

• Working…