HPC and Research Computing Engineer

Position summary:
The Scientific Computing and Data Analysis (SCDA) section, under the Research Support Division (RSD), promotes the effective use of High-Performance Computing (HPC) in OIST research environment. The SCDA manages OIST scientific computing resources and services to support computationally intensive research studies, ranging from bioinformatics to computational physics.

The HPC and research computing member will support and enhance the usage of OIST’s substantial HPC and scientific computing services. Under the direction of the SCDA Leader, the member will support usage of OIST computing resources, which involves day to day management of OIST HPC clusters and computing services, as well as general systems administration and programming tasks.

Responsibilities 

1. Supports day-to-day operations for the HPC team by monitoring computing resource performance, managing configurations, and addressing security administration
2. Installs, configures, and performs document management for cluster infrastructure components (OS, scheduler, storage, network, etc.)
3. Investigates, debugs, maintains hardware and applies system firmware and software revisions
4. Deploys and operates management and monitoring tools to ensure proper HPC system operation
5. Engages and collaborates with vendors to assist with support and maintenance activities as required
6. Explores emerging technologies and technical developments to address expanding analytical requirements
7. Stays current with best practices in the HPC field
8. Contributes to a team culture of trust and transparency by sharing information openly, and deliberately
9. Performs other related duties as assigned or requested by the Section Leader

Qualifications 
(Required)

1. Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field such as computer science, computer information systems, etc., or equivalent combination of education, training, and experience
2. 3+ years of operation and administration experience in computing environment using Linux/Unix variants
3. Good organization and communication skills, verbal and written, either in Japanese or in English
4. Ability to develop positive working relationships and a strong rapport with team members
5. Ability to identify and resolve problems
6. Ability to learn and apply new concepts, methods, and practices
7. Shell scripting commands – bash, perl, ruby or python or any combination
8. Daily usage of version control tools such as Git (preferred), SVN, CVS, etc

(Preferred)

1. Expertise with system administrating, monitoring, and maintaining secure Linux/Unix-based HPC environment
2. Automation/configuration management experience (Puppet, Ansible, Chef, Salt, Cobbler, Kickstart, etc.)
3. Experience with HPC system software cluster management tools (SLURM, PBS, Torque/Maui, etc.)
4. Experience with container technologies (Singularity, Docker, Enroot, etc.)
5. Familiarity with shared and distributed memory parallelism (OpenMP, MPI) and accelerators (GPUs)
6. Experience with HPC parallel storage, file systems (Lustre, GPFS, NFS, ZFS, TSM, Isilon, etc.), and computer node storage (SSD, NVME, etc.)
7. Experience with OOB management technology (BMC, IPMI, iDrac, iLO, etc.)
8. Hands-on experience of physically deploying clusters (racking, cabling, part swapping, etc.)
9. Good understanding of networking concepts

Starting Date 
As early as possible

Term & Working Hours 
Term: Full-time, fixed term appointment for 2 years. Contract initially with 3-month probationary period (inclusive). This contract may be renewed.

Working hours: Flextime (core time 10:00-15:00) 7.5 hrs per day (Multiplied by prescribed working days per month)

Compensation & Benefits 
In accordance with the OIST Employee Compensation Regulations

Benefits:

• Relocation, housing and commuting allowances
• Annual paid leave and summer holidays
• Health insurance (Private School Mutual Aid http://www.shigakukyosai.jp/ )
• Welfare pension insurance (kousei-nenkin)
• Worker’s accident compensation insurance (roudousha-saigai-hoshou-hoken)
• Access to Child Development Center
• Access to Schooling Options
• Language Education
• Recourse Center (Daily Life Support in Okinawa)