Associate Director - IT Infrastructure

Associate Director - IT Infrastructure & Architecture About the Opportunity

Job Summary:

The Associate Director of IT Infrastructure is responsible for supporting the comprehensive computing needs of the ECE department through providing hands‑on technical expertise and collaborating closely with departmental faculty and staff. The Associate Director will develop plans to support the ongoing and future computing infrastructure needs of the Department while managing critical teaching laboratories and administrative workflows. The Associate Director supports our growing department through setting up and optimizing business‑related computing frameworks (such as signature flows, workflows, document management, databases, web services), managing the technical requirements and hardware and software maintenance of the undergraduate teaching labs and selected research labs, and creating comprehensive administrative workflows.

The role includes understanding research and teaching needs of faculty and students, infrastructure architecture and design principles, infrastructure management, and serving as the primary liaison with the College Computer Center and university IT services and security offices. The Associate Director is responsible for helping researchers in the planning/dimensioning and acquisition of specialized HPC systems, training incoming faculty on procurement processes, conducting requirement gathering to ensure hardware and software meet research needs, and managing IT asset inventory.

The position strategically coordinates with university and college resources to support student/faculty needs and projects efficiently and cost‑effectively while maintaining security compliance and daily system maintenance. The Associate Director should have proven problem‑solving skills and key technical skills, a "can do" attitude and the ability to work through challenging situations. The Associate Director must have the ability to interact effectively with stakeholders including faculty, students, administration, and external IT services.

Candidates must have excellent written and oral communication skills, experience working on multiple concurrent projects and activities, and demonstrated initiative to research and learn new technologies. The ECE Department supports compute‑intensive research areas. ECE Department represents a diverse range of needs, effectively leveraging centralized heterogeneous high‑performance computing systems, identifying university‑wide staff and services to support ECE research and teaching, as well as supporting the acquisition, installation and maintenance of customized local computing platforms.

The department maintains many computer‑based labs, some that are virtualized to increase efficiency and flexibility, while reducing maintenance efforts.

• Bachelor''s Degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field
• Minimum of 3 years of IT infrastructure experience in a research or academic environment
• Experience with hardware and software support for Mac, PC, and Linux environments
• Strong knowledge of research computing environments and HPC systems
• Experience with specialized software including Cadence, Tensor Flow, Keras, PyTorch, and Siemens EDA
• Understanding of IT security principles and compliance requirements
• Strong interpersonal, organizational, and communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to work with diverse stakeholders and manage multiple projects
• Preferred:
  Experience with educational technology development and web programming
• LAMP stack design and implementation experience
• Knowledge of GPU and FPGA cluster management
• Experience with federal research compliance and security requirements
• Background in AI/ML computing infrastructure

• Must be flexible, enthusiastic, and energized by change
• Proven problem‑solving skills and a "can do" attitude
• Ability to work effectively in challenging and dynamic situations
• Initiative to research and learn new technologies independently
• Strong customer service orientation for supporting faculty and student needs