HPC Consultant (Supercomputing / Linux) - part-time

Why Work at BYU

As the flagship higher education institution of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young University (BYU) strives to be among the exceptional universities in the world. At BYU, we are devoted to our faith and to our students. We take an active role in the University's Mission: "To assist individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life.”

Our unique mission, deeply rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, provides countless ways to serve and make an impact. This, along with our remarkable culture of belonging, weekly devotionals, and endless opportunities for learning and growth—all situated within a beautiful and historic campus—make it hard to imagine a more inspiring place to work.

Brigham Young University strongly prefers to hire faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Job Description

HPC Consultant (part-time)

*This is a part-time position up to 28 hours/week.

The Office of Research Computing provides reliable, state-of-the-art High Performance Computing (HPC) resources to researchers at BYU. Current resources include over 40,000 processor cores and six petabytes of storage. All systems use Linux. Research projects on our systems are very diverse; projects include materials science, computational fluid dynamics, genomics, molecular dynamics, astrophysics, economics simulations, and many others. Many of the faculty who we work with are distinguished in their field of study.

HPC Consultants help enable research at BYU. The employee will assist faculty and student researchers from many disciplines in training, application installation, code and =workflow optimization, batch job management, and general troubleshooting. Solutions may involve advanced programming techniques, such as the use of MPI to spread the processing across multiple servers, multi-threading, GPUs, and more.

The ideal candidate has the desire to move research forward at the university by utilizing their solid programming background, ability to communicate clearly with others, and ability to work through complex technical problems with people who may or may not be tech-savvy.

• Please see the Additional Questions section below and include those answers in an attached document as part of your application.

WHAT QUALIFIES YOU FOR THIS ROLE

Required Skills:

• Capability and desire to learn new skills
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills
• Experienced with bash on the command line and in scripts on Linux
• At least one compiled language (strong preference for C, C++, or Fortran)
• At least one interpreted language (e.g. Python, Julia, Perl, etc.)

Desired experience:

• Experience debugging software that you did not write
• Experience with batch job schedulers (e.g. Slurm, Moab, LSF)
• Experience performing research and computational simulations
• Experience writing Makefiles
• Experience with shell scripting on Linux
• Experience writing technical documentation or training materials

Export Control Regulations

The Office of Research Computing supports projects with various export-control restrictions. Employment is restricted to US citizens and lawful permanent residents. Prior to hire, the final candidate may be subject to a screening process for citizenship/residency status in accordance with export-control regulations.

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING IN THIS POSITION

This position requires a dedicated individual who works well with others and is very proactive. They must be persistent in working with users to support their research. The position will include at least the following responsibilities:

User Support

• Handle support requests in person, over the phone, and online
  • This is support for research computing, not desktops, email, etc.
• Meet with faculty and student researchers to assess needs
• Provide individualized and group training to users
• Conduct seminars and guest lectures

Code and Workflow Optimization, Advanced Debugging and Support

• Improve algorithms, optimize code, and develop code
• Improve workflows and batch job scheduler integration
• Debug software using command line tools and debuggers
  • Work with support contacts for commercial and open source software
  • Find and fix problems with code compilation, performance, libraries, etc.
  • Send patches to support contacts as necessary

Software Installation and Maintenance

• Maintain multi-version application repository on Linux
• Software installation and upgrades
  • Commercial and open source
  • Most programs are compiled and installed from source
  • Create and maintain environment modules
• Test new processor and compiler features to determine optimal compiler settings

The employee is expected to proactively learn new skills through self-study and by staying current with developments in high-performance computing.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS

* Please provide brief answers to the following questions, either as a part of your resume/cover letter, or in a separate document attached to the application. They do not need to be lengthy; one or two paragraphs each is usually fine.

1. List the programming and scripting languages you are familiar with and rate your proficiency in each. Only include a language if you can write loops, conditionals, functions, etc. in that language (note: this includes bash, tcsh, etc.).

2. Describe your programming background.

3. Describe your familiarity with Linux.

4. What experience do you have with compiling software from source?

5. If any, describe your experience performing research in an academic, government, or an R&D-type setting. Highlight any HPC experience you have.

Required Documents:

All Staff positions require a resume.

Refer to the Job Posting for any additional required documents.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must hold and be worthy to hold a current temple recommend.

Brigham Young University is an equal opportunity employer, including disability and protected veteran status.

Brigham Young University (BYU) is widely recognized not just for its world-class education, but for its deep commitment to inspired religious values. Gathered together in a Christ-centered atmosphere, BYU employees are a vital part of a community of belonging, where we value the experiences, perspectives, and talents of each individual. If you share in our devotion to faith and to excellence, we have a place for you here at BYU!