Research Computing Specialist

Research Computing Specialist

 (Job #21008459)

CRC is searching for a Research Computing Support Specialist to join our growing team.  Your primary responsibility will be to assist researchers in the onboarding of state-of-the-art advanced computing and data systems, tools, and software to enable research productivity. We support research in fields such as engineering, chemistry, genomics, biostatistics, economics, and linguistics, among many other areas. The core duties in this role include 

  • ·        creating user accounts
  • ·        provisioning storage and computing time allocations
  • ·        configuring access control policies for data sharing
  • ·        building and installing software according to best-practices standard
  • ·        helping design and prototype new workflow modalities
  • ·        reviewing, testing, and improving hands-on training materials
  • ·        engaging researchers one-on-one to help debug software or workflow issues
  • ·        recommending new approaches or services to better support our research community, taking in account of the feedback from one-on-one engagements
  • ·        seeking out training opportunities to continually improve and expand one’s own skillset and sharing the new knowledge with the CRC team and broader research community 
     

CRC is well known in the Pitt community for providing outstanding customer service support, and our Research Computing Support Specialist is critical to this success.  You will need to have a positive customer service attitude, including the willingness to help users regardless of their expertise or attitude.  While we expect the Research Computing Support Specialist to debug and resolve independently a wide range of technical advanced computing issues, difficult domain-specific requests can be referred to CRC faculty. 

Additional duties include producing documentation such as responses to user support in FAQs, contributing to internal SOP (standard operating procedures) documentation, and contributing to the PITT-CRC GitHub repository.  The PITT-CRC GitHub houses internal codes and automation tools that streamlines the operations of the Center. The Research Computing Support Specialist is expected to help implement improvements to existing code as well as refactor code to conform to industry best practices so as to modernize our code base for sustainable development. 

Since the CRC operates in a high-performance computing ecosystem, you will be expected to become familiar with HPC techniques.  Get paid while learning new scripting languages, becoming an expert in the LMOD software provisioning system and in the SLURM resource manager, and developing new tools that make management of these environments simpler. This is an opportunity to take your technical support skills to the next level. 

  • Bachelor’s degree in a science, technology, engineering or other quantitative discipline. Experience can be accepted in lieu of degree.
  • 1-3 years experience in a technical support environment or equivalent
  • 3-5 years of practical experience in Linux environments, including scripting languages such bash, Perl, Python, and fundamental Linux tools like sed, awk, and regex 
  • Ability and self-initiative to complete projects and troubleshoot technical issues with minimal supervision
  • Proven responsibility when given superuser privileges
  • Ability to communicate clearly, both verbally and written
  • Prior experience in HPC or computational science is a plus
  • Hiring Range TBD based on qualifications

Application and more information