High Performance Computing Engineer

Summary

Harvard Medical School is dedicated to improving health and well-being through excellence in teaching, learning, and research. As a High-Performance Computing Engineer, you will support the implementation and management of HPC environments to facilitate computational research, collaborating closely with researchers and team members.

Responsibilities

• Perform provisioning, configuration, and decommissioning of HPC compute clusters
• Support the administration and tuning of workload schedulers (e.g., Slurm) to ensure efficient job management and cluster utilization
• Help maintain secure, regulated compute environments (e.g., NIST 800-171)
• Contribute to the integration of user accounts and identity management with institutional systems
• Maintain and optimize user-facing software environments, including module systems and containerized applications
• Support development and maintenance of scripts, automation, and tools used in cluster operations
• Monitor system health, respond to alerts, and assist with compliance reporting and documentation
• Collaborate with team members and researchers to troubleshoot and improve the computing environment
• Contribute to operational documentation and support knowledge-sharing across the team
• Participate in off-hours on-call rotation
• Perform other duties as assigned

Skills

• Minimum of two years' post-secondary education or relevant work experience
• Experience managing Linux-based systems in a research or academic environment
• Familiarity with workload schedulers (Slurm preferred), cluster provisioning, or performance tuning
• Experience with infrastructure monitoring, configuration management (e.g., Ansible), and containerization (e.g., Apptainer/Singularity, Docker)
• Understanding of security and compliance frameworks relevant to research computing
• Strong troubleshooting, communication, and collaboration skills
• Ability to work in a team-oriented environment and adapt to evolving priorities
• Demonstrated service orientation and commitment to operational reliability
• Willingness to learn and grow technical depth in HPC tools and methodologies
• Effective time management and documentation habits
• Bachelor's degree preferred
• Familiarity with workload schedulers (Slurm preferred)
• Completion of Harvard IT Academy specified foundational courses (or external equivalent) preferred

Qualifications

Must Haves

• Minimum of two years' post-secondary education or relevant work experience
• Experience managing Linux-based systems in a research or academic environment
• Familiarity with workload schedulers (Slurm preferred), cluster provisioning, or performance tuning
• Experience with infrastructure monitoring, configuration management (e.g., Ansible), and containerization (e.g., Apptainer/Singularity, Docker)
• Understanding of security and compliance frameworks relevant to research computing
• Strong troubleshooting, communication, and collaboration skills
• Ability to work in a team-oriented environment and adapt to evolving priorities
• Demonstrated service orientation and commitment to operational reliability
• Willingness to learn and grow technical depth in HPC tools and methodologies
• Effective time management and documentation habits

Nice to Haves

• Bachelor's degree preferred
• Familiarity with workload schedulers (Slurm preferred)
• Completion of Harvard IT Academy specified foundational courses (or external equivalent) preferred

Benefits

• Generous paid time off including parental leave
• Medical, dental, and vision health insurance coverage starting on day one
• Retirement plans with university contributions
• Wellbeing and mental health resources
• Support for families and caregivers
• Professional development opportunities including tuition assistance and reimbursement
• Commuter benefits, discounts and campus perks