System expert at LUNARC/MAX IV - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

LUNARC is a center at Lund University that initiates and supports activities and collaboration in activities such as research, education, high-performance computing (HPC), visualisation and storage services. LUNARC also offers counselling and courses to enable researchers to use the resources efficiently within their fields. LUNARC also participates on a national level in the e-infrastructure SNIC.

LUNARC currently operates compute and visualization resources with associated storage resources.  For easier access and usage, LUNARC has developed an interactive HPC service (remote desktop) with hardware accelerated graphics support.

LUNARC (www.lunarc.lu.se) currently has 12 employees consisting of system engineers, application experts, and developers. LUNARC is a division under Building Sciences at LTH but is a LU joint and national resource.

MAX IV is a Swedish national large-scale research laboratory hosted by Lund University. It provides scientists from Sweden as well as internationally, with state-of-the-art instrumentation for research in areas such as engineering, physics, structural biology, chemistry and nanotechnology. Fully developed it will receive more than 2 000 scientists annually, conducting ground-breaking experiments in materials and life sciences using the brilliant X-ray light.

The MAX IV Controls and IT team (KITS) deliver solutions to the whole MAX IV organisation in the areas of control system hardware, controls software applications, infrastructure and networking, information management and scientific software. This is a dynamic and highly challenging environment and requires close collaboration with the staff in order to understand the needs and be effective in forming solutions. We are around 50 people in total who work in 5 domains in a well organised and agile way.

LUNARC collaborates with MAX IV on HPC services such as compute, visualization, and storage. LUNARC operates Aurora, which is a 300-node cluster for Lund University, MAX IV and national users. Data produced and stored at MAX IV is directly available on the Aurora cluster. This enables researchers to use the same workflow as at the beamline when they leave MAX IV.

This position will be focused on strengthening this collaboration, developing the HPC services and supporting the users of both MAX IV and LUNARC.

We are looking for a skilled and highly motivated new colleague to join our IT infrastructure team to work with us on the high-performance aspects of our infrastructure.

Work duties
Are you passionate about creating new creative solutions for our users in the fields of high-performance compute (HPC), visualization and storage? Is Linux administration and development of Linux-based services something you are passionate about? If you like working together as a team to meet interesting questions, this position could be something for you.

The successful candidate will have the opportunity to engage in a wide range of advanced computing tasks at MAX IV and LUNARC. This includes high-performance computing, visualization, data collection, storage, and networking. The duties also include developing the ongoing collaboration on HPC between MAX IV and LUNARC. The position of course involves participating in collaborative projects within LUNARC / MAX IV.

The successful candidate is expected to actively contribute to the future development and be able to follow and analyze the trends and new developments in compute, visualization, and storage.

The tasks include basic system administration, i.e.:

• Hardware support of Linux-based computing resources for LUNARC and MAX IV.
• Maintenance of system software
• Monitoring of hardware and various services
• User support

The computer systems are based on the latest in hardware and software and the jobs therefore also mean opportunities to try and become acquainted with the latest technologies in the field of computers. This can be:

• Development and commissioning of new systems.
• Different types of development projects in user support, system management and monitoring.
• Attend conferences within HPC and related areas.

Qualifications
We are looking for candidates who have excellent knowledge in Linux system administration and are passionate about creating new and creative solutions for our many users. You should also be a good team player with great initiative, responsibility and commitment.

This position will require:

• Experience with operating large-scale computer infrastructure
• Solid understanding of the Linux operating system
• Good scripting skills
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills
• Fluent in English in both speech and writing
• Experience in working in a team with a common goal.

Desirable experience:

• server performance tuning
• managing HPC systems
• GPFS / Spectrum Scale
• Infiniband fabric
• managing job queueing systems (e.g. SLURM)
• container technology (docker, singularity) and container orchestration (Kubernetes)
• Swedish in speech and writing

We will place great emphasis on personal suitability. We expect the applicant to be creative, service-oriented, take initiatives, have analytical skills to solve problems and a good ability to collaborate in teams.

Terms of employment
Permanent position, 100 %. Probationary employment might be applied. On call services may apply in the future. The title will be system engineer.

Instructions on how to apply
Applications should include a cover letter stating the reasons why you are interested in the position and in what way the employment corresponds to your qualifications. The application should also contain a CV, degree certificate or equivalent, and other documents you wish to be considered (grade transcripts, contact information for your references, letters of recommendation, etc.).