Systems Engineering Lead, Servers, Clusters & Supercomputers — Leading Research Computing Teams for Computational Drug Discovery
Durham, NC · Hybrid (three days per week on site, two days optional remote)
The Opportunity
Keeping a research computing estate of this size dependable takes more than individual expertise: Linux clusters whose core counts reach into the tens of thousands, GPU clusters numbering hundreds of GPUs, storage measured in tens of petabytes, and custom supercomputing hardware all have to run as one secure, easy-to-use platform for scientists. This hire will lead the teams that build and run that platform, directing how its infrastructure, software, and networks develop and how well researchers can put them to work.
The client is a New York–based research company in computational biochemistry and drug discovery, with sites at its New York City offices and at data centers in Pittsburgh, PA and Durham, NC. This posting is for the Durham, NC site.
The Research Environment
The client pairs specialized computing hardware it designed in-house with high-performance commodity systems, machine learning, and other computational methods to model molecular behavior at the atomic level and design highly selective drug candidates. That work spans in-house programs and drug discovery efforts run with outside partners, and much of it runs as large-scale scientific workflows on the infrastructure this role oversees.
What You'll Do
- Lead the engineering groups responsible for building and running the client's compute clusters and the software stack on top of them.
- Direct the operation of Linux clusters scheduled with Slurm and Kubernetes, at scales from the low thousands of cores into the tens of thousands.
- Scale GPU clusters numbering hundreds of GPUs and storage systems holding tens of petabytes of research data.
- Sustain specialized, massively parallel custom supercomputing hardware alongside the general-purpose clusters.
- Architect high-performance RDMA fabrics, wide-area networking, and public cloud environments.
- Support the large-scale scientific workflows behind the client's drug discovery research.
- Deliver all of these resources to researchers in a form that is both secure and easy to use.
- Communicate clearly with research users and fellow engineers about priorities, tradeoffs, and system health.
What You Bring
- Strong grounding in Linux fundamentals, including File Systems, Networking, and Processes, plus hands-on Linux Systems Administration experience.
- Ability to explain technical reasoning to experts and non-specialists alike.
- Five or more years of relevant experience.
- A background in leading and managing engineering teams (helpful, not required).
- Expertise in any of the following: Large-Installation Systems Administration, HPC Systems Engineering, Python programming and scripting for Distributed Systems, High-Performance Data-Parallel Computing, Systems Software, Software Development, and Security Tool Deployment.
- The client weighs versatility, intellectual curiosity, and a record of strong accomplishment more heavily than depth in any single area above.
Paths Into This Role
Candidates whose graduate or doctoral work centered on high-performance or distributed computing, operating systems, computer networking, or large-scale scientific computing in fields such as Computational Physics or Computational Chemistry will find that training maps closely onto this work.
Compensation & Total Rewards
- Expected annual base salary: $400,000–$1,000,000, set according to factors such as experience, education, and location.
- Sign-on and year-end bonuses as variable pay.
- A generous benefits package with relocation support.
Joining StaffRight Associates
When you work with StaffRight Associates, you get a recruiting partner who understands the substance of your work and represents it accurately to the teams hiring for it. We focus on matching researchers with problems worth their training, and we'll give you a clear, candid picture of each opportunity before you decide to pursue it.
