Research Computing Engineer (AI Infrastructure and HPC)

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:

• CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), pleaselogin to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.

• CURRENT PENN STATE STUDENT (not employed previously at the university) and seeking employment with Penn State, pleaselogin to Workday to complete thestudent application process. Please do not apply here, apply internally through Workday.

• If you are NOT a current employee or student, please click “Apply” and completethe application process for external applicants.

Approval of remote and hybrid work is not guaranteed regardless of work location. For additional information on remote work at Penn State, see Notice to Out of State Applicants.

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POSITION SPECIFICS​

The Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS)at PennStateseeks aResearch Computing Engineer to join our technical team. This role supports Penn State’sresearch mission by designing,operating, automating, andoptimizing theGPU andAI and computing infrastructure used byresearchers across the university, along with the high-performance computing systems that support it.  

This position will be filled at theResearch Computing Systems Engineer - Intermediate Professionallevel.

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 enablecutting-edge research in AI, simulation, and computational science. 

Work Arrangement: This is a full-time position, which will report to theResearch 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 acrosscompute, storage, networking, and software environments.

• Monitor,maintain, automate, and improve AI and HPC systems andsupporting infrastructure.

• Design, deploy,operate, troubleshoot, andoptimize 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 complianceprocess for the systems weoperate, including environments subject to federal researchsecurity.

• 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 ishelpful but notrequired. 

AI and HPC Workloads  

• Administration of multi-GPU nodes atscale, including driver and firmware lifecycle management,NVLink/NVSwitch topology validation, GPU health monitoring and tuning for multi-GPU or multi-nodeGPU 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 asSlurm, 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 asxCAT,Warewulf,OpenCHAMI, OpenStack/Bifrost, or MAAS.

• Experience administering or supporting Kubernetes.

• Experience with virtualization and containerization technologies such as VMware, Docker,Apptainer, orPodman.  

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, orInfluxDB.

• 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 

Why ICDS 

At ICDS,you’ll build and support infrastructure that enables advanced research in artificial intelligence, machine learning, simulation, data science, and computationally intensive discovery.You’ll work on clusters, storage and GPU systems Penn State researchers rely on for AI, machinelearning and computational research.Youwon’t own a narrow slice of that. Our engineers work across provisioning, scheduling, storage, networking, GPUinfrastructure and user-facing tooling.You'lldebug problems fromauser’s job submissionall the waydown todrivers and system firmware, andyou’ll learn a lot on the way.  

You'll also be close tothe science.You’ll talk to the people running the workloads, understand whatthey’re trying toaccomplish, andengineersystems around actual research needs rather than requirements handed down from somewhere else. It’s a collaborative team, and the problems arerarely the same twice.  

MINIMUM EDUCATION, WORK EXPERIENCE & REQUIRED CERTIFICATIONS

BACKGROUND CHECKS/CLEARANCES

SALARY & BENEFITS

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 ourBenefits Page.

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Pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act and the Pennsylvania Act of 1988, Penn State publishes a combined Annual Security and Annual Fire Safety Report (ASR). The ASR includes crime statistics and institutional policies concerning campus security, such as those concerning alcohol and drug use, crime prevention, the reporting of crimes, sexual assault, and other matters. The ASR is available for reviewhere.

EEO IS THE LAW

Penn State is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. If you are unable to use our online application process due to an impairment or disability, please contact 814-865-1473.

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