System Engineer - NCSA

System Engineer - NCSA/Senior System Engineer

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign provides supercomputing and advanced digital resources for the nation's scientific enterprise. At NCSA, University of Illinois faculty, staff, students, and collaborators from around the world use advanced computing technologies to address and research grand challenges for the benefit of science and society. For more than 40 years, NCSA has partnered with one-third of Fortune 50 companies by bringing industry, researchers, and students together to solve complex challenges at rapid speed and scale.

NCSA is seeking a motivated individual for a System Engineer or Senior System Engineer role. The successful candidate will install, maintain, and troubleshoot HPC systems and services, including Kubernetes, Open Stack, on-prem and off-prem cloud environments, and others, with a focus on supporting scientific research needs. They will collaborate with researchers to resolve computational issues and develop innovative solutions to emerging research challenges, as well as engage with the national research community to provide computational services to NSF-funded collaborations.

Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States, as this role is not eligible for visa sponsorship now or in the future. This position follows a hybrid schedule with two to three in-office days each week, and the selected candidate must reside within 90 miles of the National Petascale Computing Facility (NPCF) to support onsite work requirements.

Job Summary

Install, maintain, and troubleshoot HPC systems and services, including Kubernetes, Open Stack, on-prem and off-prem cloud, and others, with a specialization in meeting the needs of scientific research. Collaborate with scientific researchers to resolve computational issues and design innovative solutions to emerging research challenges. Integrate with the national community of researchers to provide computational services to NSF-funded collaborations. This position is on-site, with the possibility of a hybrid work arrangement.

Duties & Responsibilities

* Support (55%)

Diagnose system issues, implement fixes, and recommend long-term solutions.

Monitor systems, triage incoming support requests and alerts, and escalate when needed.

Maintain up-to-date documentation: run-books, "how-to" notes, onboarding guides, architecture diagrams.

Respond to/process incoming support requests/alerts.

Build, install and maintain system hardware and software.

Detect and investigate problems with supported systems. Suggest solutions.

Provide information for after action reports (when requested).

Collect requirements and prioritize feature development.

* Technical Investigation (40%)

Develop and extend configuration and workload management solutions (e.g., Puppet, Ansible, Slurm, HTCondor, Rancher, Kubernetes).

Automate operational tasks using CI/CD tooling (e.g., Git Lab Runners, Git Hub Actions).

Write scripts and small programs in one or more languages to streamline routine tasks and improve operational efficiency.

Install, configure, upgrade, and troubleshoot computer hardware and software, data networks, and related technologies.

Lead development on smaller internal projects, assist with larger internal and external.

Investigate smaller scale new systems and solutions.

Provide limited guidance to partner research projects.

Make technical recommendations regarding NCSA's policies, practices, system development, and architecture.

* Outreach (5%)

Organize, program, and lead regular training sessions and hands-on workshops.

Provide NCSA training, guidance, and assistance related to team operations and activities.

Participate in conferences.

Minimum Qualifications

● High school diploma or equivalent

● Three (3) years of work experience in IT-related functions such as hardware/software support, programming, network design, network engineering, IT systems integration, or a closely related field. College coursework, which includes Information Technology (IT), IT Management, Programming, IT systems, or a closely…