POSITION SPECIFICSThe Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) at Penn State seeks a
Research Computing Engineer to join our technical team. This role supports Penn State's research mission by designing, operating, automating, and optimizing the GPU and AI and computing infrastructure used by researchers across the university, along with the high-performance computing systems that support it.
This position will be filled at the
Research Computing Systems Engineer - Intermediate Professional level.
Candidates must be U.S. citizens due to specific access requirements associated with this position.
This position is ideal for an engineer who enjoys building reliable, scalable systems for machine learning, data-intensive research, and advanced computing workloads. The successful candidate will work across GPU systems, HPC platforms, storage, networking, automation, and user-facing research workflows to enable cutting-edge research in AI, simulation, and computational science.
Work Arrangement: This is a full-time position, which will report to the Research HPC Manager and requires on-site work at University Park and is not supportive of remote work.
As part of a collaborative engineering team, you'll contribute across a broad range of responsibilities including:
- Collaborate with teammates, users, and vendor support to diagnose issues and implement solutions across compute, storage, networking, and software environments.
- Monitor, maintain, automate, and improve AI and HPC systems and supporting infrastructure.
- Design, deploy, operate, troubleshoot, and optimize systems using DevOps and infrastructure-as-code practices.
- Support GPU-accelerated computing environments for AI, machine learning, and scientific workloads.
- Partner with researchers and ICDS staff to understand workload requirements and develop practical engineering solutions for system configuration, performance, and research workflows.
- Support security, logging, documentation, and compliance process for the systems we operate, including environments subject to federal research security.
- Contribute to planning, requirements gathering, process improvement, and operational readiness for new services and infrastructure.
- Provide timely updates to system documentation and respond to user questions with clear, actionable guidance.
- Evaluate and improve tools, platforms, and workflows that support AI model development, training, inference, and data movement at scale.
Required qualifications and skills include the following:- Ability to work effectively in a Linux environment, including command-line tools, file editing, POSIX permissions, and system configuration.
- Strong scripting ability in Bash and Python.
- Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to debug complex systems.
- Ability to work collaboratively as part of a technical team.
- Experience using AI tools or AI agents to improve programming, debugging, development, or prototyping workflows.
- Clear written and verbal communication skills.
Preferred qualifications:Experience with one or more of the following is
helpful but not required.
AI and HPC Workloads - Administration of multi-GPU nodes at scale, including driver and firmware lifecycle management, NVLink/NVSwitch topology validation, GPU health monitoring and tuning for multi-GPU or multi-node GPU workloads.
- Experience supporting AI/ML infrastructure, including environments used for model training, inference, experiment workflows, and large-scale data processing.
- Experience with job schedulers such as Slurm, PBS, HTCondor, or LSF.
- Software development experience and familiarity with HPC programming environments such as C/C++, Fortran, CUDA, MPI, or OpenMP.
Infrastructure and Automation - DevOps experience, including Git-based workflows, CI/CD, automation, and collaborative development practices.
- Experience with system deployment tools such as xCAT, Warewulf, OpenCHAMI, OpenStack/Bifrost, or MAAS.
- Experience administering or supporting Kubernetes.
- Experience with virtualization and containerization technologies such as VMware, Docker, Apptainer, or Podman.
Networking and Storage - Networking experience, including EVPN, BGP, and IPv6.
- Experience with high-speed interconnects such as InfiniBand, HPE Slingshot, or similar HPC fabrics.
- Experience with HPC or distributed storage systems such as GPFS, Lustre, Ceph, or VAST.
Observability and Security - Monitoring and observability experience with tools such as Grafana, Graphite, Prometheus, VictoriaMetrics, or InfluxDB.
- Experience with databases such as MySQL/MariaDB or PostgreSQL.
- Security experience including identity and access management, single sign-on, and LDAP/Active Directory.
Background and Process - Familiarity with Agile project development.
- Prior experience in academic research computing, research data infrastructure, or large-scale shared computing environments.
Application Instructions: To receive full consideration for the position, applications should include:
- A cover letter expressing the candidate's interest in the role
- A current Curriculum Vitae (CV) or Resume
MINIMUM EDUCATION, WORK EXPERIENCE & REQUIRED CERTIFICATIONSBachelor's Degree1+ years of relevant experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience acceptedRequired Certifications:None
SALARY & BENEFITSThe salary range for this position, including all possible grades, is $81,312.00 - $122,016.00.
Salary Structure - Information on Penn State's salary structure
Penn State provides a competitive benefits package for full-time employees designed to support both personal and professional well-being. In addition to comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, employees enjoy robust retirement plans and substantial paid time off which includes holidays, vacation and sick time. One of the standout benefits is the generous 75% tuition discount, available to employees as well as eligible spouses and children. For more detailed information, please visit our Benefits Page.
