From the RCT Archives: #142 - Other Teams Aren't the Competition
Hi, everyone! This is the last of my over-the-summer “From the Archives” issues - this one from Oct 2022. We’ll get started with regular posting in the next issue.
The job board highlights, though, at the end, are current, and there’s a bunch of really interesting ones this round - do check them out, or look at the job board at any time.
Issue #140 was controversial, but not for the reasons that I thought it might be. In the last two weeks I’ve had now had several people flat-out deny this claim:
There are core facilities all over your institution which get much of their revenue from fee-for-service quite successfully.
saying, essentially, that such a tawdry arrangement would never be tolerated at their institution. In each case, googling “[Institution] core facilities” returned lists of teams that nonetheless did exactly that.
I’m not at all surprised that we still have so much to learn about other technical research support teams even within our own institutions. I’d like to change things, though.
One of the recurring themes of this publication is that isolating ourselves by type of work we do is a mistake. That’s true whether we’re considering growing RCD silos between compute, software, and data, or existing silos between (say) RCD teams and biomed cores and data science institutes and stats help desks.
From funding to working with research communities to product management to technology, all of our needs are the same, our goals are intertwined, and our boundaries are growing fuzzy. We have much to learn from each other and how we approach our common issues, even if we chose to use different methods.
Lack of awareness isn’t the only problem I see about our relationships with other teams. I’ve been in a couple of meetings this week where other teams were referred to as competitors. And that’s not really right, either.
Our goal, as leaders of our research computing and data teams, is to advance research and scholarship as best we can.
But the scientific needs of an entire research organization are almost limitless, while our teams’ resources are very much limited.
That means there’s going to be valuable work, useful work, interesting and challenging work, work our team could help with, that our team is nonetheless not going to do. Meeting all of everyone’s needs is not and has never been an option available to us.
Our competition, such as it is, isn’t other technical research support teams. Our competition is that research going unsupported. Our competition is students and postdocs spinning their wheels trying to do something they don’t yet have the tools or knowledge for, spending too much time to do a poor job. Our competition is less and worse science.
To fight that competition, the true competition, we need to not just know about but actively collaborate with other teams, inside and outside our institutions — even from the private sector. We need to be prepared to redirect researchers to those other teams when they can get better help there. And in turn, we need to focus our energies where our team is the one best equipped to help.
None of this is to say that our institutions and funders don’t sometimes put us into competition with those other research support teams - for a new hire or for operating funding. But the knowledge of those other teams allows us to position ourselves in the context of our research institution and research community, which makes it easier to advocate for ourselves and our teams in that context. And the existence of these other teams which allows us to nurture a specialty, which amplifies our impact by focussing our growth and our efforts.
And now, on to the roundup!
Managing Teams
Prepare for Workplace Conflicts with a few “Go-To” Conversation Starters - Karin Hurt
It’s pretty common, especially for those new to leadership positions, to know generally the right thing to do, but not know have the right words at hand to nudge things in the right direction. Having short little scripted phrases filed away that you practice using can be invaluable, especially in heated situations.
Here Hurt outlines twelve such phrases for you. I was just going to excerpt those that were particularly useful for us, but that’s all of them! The article explains when and how to use them, and variants.
- I care about _____ (you, this team, this project) and I’m confident we can find a solution that we can all work with
- Let’s pause this conversation for a moment, and come back in (an hour, a few hours, tomorrow) and talk about this.
- It sounds like you’re feeling _____ is that right? [pause for affirmation]. Thank you for letting me know how you feel.
- What would a successful outcome look like for you?
- Let’s start with what we agree on
- What I’m hearing you say is ____. Am I interpreting that correctly?
- I’m curious how this looks from your perspective.
- What do you suggest we do next?
- What can I do to support you right now?
- What’s one action we can both agree to as a next step here?
- So, to recap our conversation, we’ve agreed to ___. Is that your understanding?
- Let’s schedule some time to talk about this again, and see how our solution is working.
Remote Work Conference - Stanford University
Interesting set of talks on remote work and remote collaboration, which has long been a thing but is now getting even more attention. Interesting talks here on remote knowledge work (including science collaborations, which apparently were measurably less productive than colocated teams until about 2010 or so).
There was a short section on hybrid work here, too. Work on hybrid teams is just starting - we don’t even have widely accepted words yet for the different arrangements that all fall under the umbrella term of “hybrid”. But right now there’s more opinions than facts about hybrid work; it’ll be good to keep an eye on sessions like these to see what does and doesn’t work, and how we would know.
Managing Your Own Career
Leadership SLAs - Aviv Ben-Yosef
Establishing service-level agreements with ourselves is surprisingly effective for some people. “I provide feedback within one business day”, “I give everyone on my team at least one piece of feedback per week”, “I respond to clients by the end of the day”, “I make two hours a week for professional development”… there is a lot of research supporting this kind of commitment as a way of driving behaviour. (Maybe it’s a bit cliché, but I find writing them on sticky notes and putting them on my desk works very well for at least beginning a behaviour change). Ben-Yosef gives some examples in this article.
#42: How to Answer Hiring Manager's Questions in Interviews - Candost Dagdeviren
Moving into leadership positions is the first time most of us in research have ever had to answer behavioural interview questions. A commonly recommended framework for answering those questions - Situation Task Action Results, STAR - is one good way of communicating answers to (many) questions of that form. (It’s a handy outline for clearly structuring short work-related “what we did and why” stories in general, in fact).
Dagdeviren describes the structure and its use in articles in this article.
(Bonus pro tip! If you’re find yourself needing to suddenly prepare for a job interview, you can do a lot worse than going through every X in the “responsibilities” section of the job listing and preparing short STAR answers for questions of the form “Tell me about a time when you did/demonstrated X”. Even if you don’t get asked that exact question, you’ll likely to be able to make use of the answers you’ve prepared. Even better, other jobs you apply for will likely have overlapping responsibilities, so these stories can be used across jobs.)
Product Management and Working with Research Communities
Ten simple rules for a successful international consortium in big data omics - Stobbe et al, PLOS Comp Bio
Collaboration is work, and large collaborations are a lot of work.
This “ten simple rules” article is written by people who have done more than a few of these kinds of consortia projects, and they know what they’re talking about. Revealingly, only three of the rules (5: build in checks; 7: keep track of code/data provenance; 8: keep up the pace) are really about the scientific work itself. Almost all of the discussion is about the unsung meta-work that has to be done to keep a large consortium functioning and moving forward.
If you or someone you work with is entering such an effort, make sure the appropriate people read this and take it seriously! Much of this stuff sounds obvious, but it takes real effort. The most common way I’ve seen consortia not really live up to their potential is when groups see rules like Rule 1 (“Set up a transparent and effective governance”), Rule 2 (bout setting clearly defined goals), or Rule 3 (about using the right terminology internally to communicate) and thinking “We don’t really need that; we all know each other, it will be fine.”
The final Rule (“Be the giant on whose shoulders others can stand”) is really nice to see here. After all the enormous work that goes into a consortium project, seeing a successful one wind down leaving nothing behind but the papers that got written is incredibly disheartening.
Scientific Publishing: Peer review without gatekeeping - Eisen et al, eLife
Transparent peer review for all - Nature Communications
Interesting week in scholarly publishing; eLife announced that they will no longer be accepting or rejecting papers that they’ve sent out for review; instead, all reviewed papers will be published online, as a Reviewed Preprint, along with the reviews. Quoting from them:
The system of science publishing we have today was not developed for today’s science or today’s technology. Its defining feature, a hierarchy of journals that use peer review to decide which papers they will publish, arose in the last century as a response to the limitations and costs of the printing press and the postal service.
and
We have found that these public preprint reviews and assessments are far more effective than binary accept or reject decisions ever could be at conveying the thinking of our reviewers and editors, and capturing the nuanced, multidimensional, and often ambiguous nature of peer review.
Although eLife doesn’t call it that, submissions will still basically be subject to desk rejects — eLife’s capacity for reviewing preprints isn’t infinite.
Meanwhile, Nature Communications will be publishing reviews of all papers:
Starting in 2016, we have offered authors the option to publish the comments received from the reviewers and their responses alongside the paper. As we believe that transparency strengthens the quality of peer review, we are now moving to publish the exchanges between authors and reviewers for all research articles submitted from November 2022 onward.
Cool Research Computing Projects
How KEK changed how everyone in Japan does CryoEM (Part 3 of 4) [Video] - AWS HPC Tech Shorts
KEK’s new cloud infratructure for CryoEM is certainly cool, but that’s not why I’m including it here. Instead, this video is just a nice example that crossed my desk this week of communicating the impacts digital research infrastructure. Note that the “speeds and feeds” stuff only comes later, in section 4; here the focus is on impact. Stories about scientists shipping hard drives of CryoEM data and waiting for weeks for results, or only finding out at the end of a 24-hour run that their data was contaminated, and so useless, versus people being on a video call while the data is being generated, giving feedback on the experiment in real time so changes can be made. And doing further analysis of data on the train. And then the impact of there being a pool of data and tools available nationally.
Those stories leave vastly more of an impact on decision makers than tables of numbers!
Note too that this isn’t some slick, high-production value marketing video that only industry can afford to do - it’s a recording of four technical people happily chatting on a Zoom call, with a little editing afterwards.
Research Software Development
Demonstrating Importance and Value in Research Software - David Wilby
Tying in very nicely to the above, Wilby writes a great article about demonstrating the importance and value of research software projects and products, focussing on impact. Read it! His categories of evidence are:
- Qualitative evidence - "Easily overlooked but also easily achieved, qualitative evidence such as testimonials from researchers or PIs or feedback from users can form strong evidence for the usefulness and quality of software.”
- Users, Downloads, Data - “Having numbers to illustrate the scale of use of your software will make any claims of research excellence or impact significantly more salient.”
- Money, Money, Money - “whether it’s the value of a grant or something more commercial such as sales of the software itself or a product enabled, monetary values can be very strong evidence.”
- Publications & Citations - ”All you can really do here is make it easy for people to cite your repository and/or paper and keep track of the citations“
And closes with this, which I completely agree with:
Try to collect evidence proactively - It’s easier said than done, but try to plan ahead for a project how you might collect some evidence, it’s not much fun but it will pay off in the future when you don’t have to desperately scrabble for it - take it from me!
You will always, at some point, need evidence, if only for your resume down the road. And once you have evidence, especially great quotes or numbers, and specific examples of research impact, you will find endless opportunities to showcase it!
Can We Use Trunk-Based Development for Legacy Software? - Burkhard Stubert
Trunk-based development is great because it encourages incremental changes and rapid iteration. But legacy software, without a detailed test suite or a clear path to getting one, makes this approach challenging.
Stubert gives us a few tools to try to to move developmennt on a legacy codebase to a trunk-based approach:
- Test-driven development for every code change
- (As an interim step) short-lived review branches for changes
- Very small user stories
Research Data Management and Analysis
2021-2022 Research Data Services Annual Report - Christina Maimone, Northwestern Research Data Services
I like sharing documents like these so teams can see what other teams are doing and how they are communicating their outcomes - here Maimone provides a nice crisp document outlining what services they offer, with numbers of how they’re used, and some of the significant research and scholarly outcomes they contributed to.
The previous report was as a PDF. I think they made the right decision moving to a web version; being trained in research, where everything is PDF papers, and then thrust into University administration, where everything’s glossy documents, often our first inclination is to make a professional looking PDF. But after you do that a couple of times you realize it’s more work and fewer people read it than a professional-looking web page.
Another nice benefit of a web format, since it’s easier to create, is that it becomes possible in future iterations to have different versions of it for different audiences. For instance, funders probably care more about external impact than potential research clients or institutional decision makers, so it could be moved higher in a funder-facing version. It also becomes easier to add less-structured sections people can open up giving longer discussions of particular projects, and (connecting to Wilby’s article above) helpful quotes from the researchers or end users of the product. Never underestimate the power of a story plus a visual plus a pull quote!
Research Computing Systems
IBM builds Diamondback tape library for enterprise and cloud hyperscalers - Chris Mellor
I’ve been hearing “tape is dead” for basically my entire career. Maybe this is the year! But it probably isn’t. For as long as it has a cost, density, and energy advantage while being fast enough for some use case, tape will be with us.
It is interesting to see how the times change how tape is positioned though - here IBMs new Diamondback system fits in a or on OCP rack (the choice of hyperscalers) and can be a standalone option or part of a distributed, scale-out “Redundant Array of Independent Libraries”.
Emerging Technologies and Practices
Intel Is Opening up Its Chip Factories to Academia - Agam Shah
Moore’s law is dead, or at least in parlous health, depending on who you ask. So custom silicon for niche research computing applications is starting to become imaginable again. (Anyone else remember GRAPE for N-body calculations?). The advance of EDA tools, which to this outsider seem to be making faster progress than FGPA programming tools, helps. So does the growth of fab-as-a-service, which allows silicon makers to continue to make money from older, larger processes while ramping up their newer technologies.
Here Shaw reports on Intel making it easier for academics in particular to get small batches of chips fabbed. Even better, it’s somewhat subsidized by an industry and government that recognizes the need for increasing semiconductor workforce development.
An interesting sign of the times is that SPEC is developing a power efficiency benchmark suite.
Random
Frustated with waiting for the elevators in your building? Pretty sure a monkey could design a better algorithm for the elevators? Are you sure? Play the elevator programming game.
The Commodordion is… honestly, I don’t even know what to say here.
The mystifyingly tortuous path to testing out AVX512 for FP16 on the first chip family that supports it (but does it, really?) - Alder Lake.
Static analysis and AI in a modern development tool… for COBOL - COBOL Colleague.
24 papercraft models of vintage computers.
A timer for your terminal, for some reason.
Kind of doctest or notebooks meets markdown files? Runme makes readme.md (or other markdown files) into notebooks in VSCode.
That’s it…
And that’s it for another week. Let me know what you thought, or if you have anything you’d like to share about the newsletter or management. Just email me or reply to this newsletter if you get it in your inbox.
Have a great weekend, and good luck in the coming week with your research computing team,
Jonathan
About This Newsletter
Research computing - the intertwined streams of software development, systems, data management and analysis - is much more than technology. It’s teams, it’s communities, it’s product management - it’s people. It’s also one of the most important ways we can be supporting science, scholarship, and R&D today.
So research computing teams are too important to research to be managed poorly. But no one teaches us how to be effective managers and leaders in academia. We have an advantage, though - working in research collaborations have taught us the advanced management skills, but not the basics.
This newsletter focusses on providing new and experienced research computing and data managers the tools they need to be good managers without the stress, and to help their teams achieve great results and grow their careers.
Jobs Leading Research Computing Teams
This week’s new-listing highlights are below in the email edition; the full listing of 337 jobs is, as ever, available on the job board.
AI Workloads Team Lead - Microsoft, Various USA and Remote
As a AI Workloads Team Lead, you will lead a team of engineers and researchers with experience in high performance computing, machine learning, deep learning, middleware, and software engineering.
Supercomputing Team Lead - Microsoft, Various and remote USA
Microsoft Azure Artificial Intelligence/High Performance Computing (AI/HPC) is looking to hire a Supercomputing Team Lead to join our team. The team is responsible for deploying, monitoring, profiling, and debugging AI training applications on hyperscale cloud infrastructure. Azure is enabling the largest supercomputing deployments to tackle complex computational problems in public cloud, evident from the various HPC products that have already made the mark on Top500, MLPerf and Graph500 rankings.
Principal Statistician - Bioinformatics & Biostatistics - Francis Crick Institute, London UK
In this position, you will play a key role in providing Francis Crick research groups with access to statistical expertise within the Bioinformatics & Biostatistics group. Working with the deputy head for Biostatistics, you will lead on all aspects of complex statistical analysis projects involving data from the latest cutting-edge experiments run at the Crick. You will work to build collaborative relationships with researchers and group members. You will have the opportunity to help develop the group by taking on analysis development, project management and staff development projects. In addition, you bare responsibilities for developing the general level of statistical thinking across the Institute.
Senior Project Manager, Computing & Software - Square Kilometer Array Observatory, Cheshire UK
The Senior Project Manager Computing & Software leads the procurement and delivery of the computing, software and networks for both telescopes, managing a budget of over Euro 100M (20M pa) and engaging with stakeholders in the majority of SKAO’s member countries.
Director, AI Product Management - Micron, San Jose CA USA
This position entails demonstrating a variety of DRAM technologies and engaging in strategic partnerships with ecosystem players to develop a comprehensive AI solution portfolio. The role demands a deep understanding of AI infrastructure needs and the ability to innovate business models to deliver outstanding value to customers. You will build and lead a cross-functional team of key representatives from multiple engineering, marketing, and operations teams to develop the strategy, optimize the case, drive products through each stage of Micron’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) process, and lead the development activities of new products by specifying the requirements, setting priorities and handling tradeoff decisions.
(Python Based) Lead Research Engineer - Thomson Reuters, Toronto ON CA or Ann Arbor MI or Frisco TX or Eagan MN USA
As a Lead Research Engineer at Thomson Reuters Labs, you will be part of a global interdisciplinary team of experts. We hire engineers and specialists across a variety of AI research areas to drive the company’s digital transformation. The science and engineering of AI are rapidly evolving. We are looking for an adaptable learner who can think in code and likes to learn and develop new skills as they are needed; someone comfortable with jumping into new problem spaces; who enjoys directing and supporting the efforts of others.
Manager, Bioinformatics Operations - Immunology - Allen Institute, Seattle WA USA
The Allen Institute for Immunology is seeking a Manager of Bioinformatics Operations with broad experience in analyzing and developing analysis tools for single-cell omics data to manage day-to-day bioinformatics operations. Reporting to the Director of Informatics & Computational Biology at the Allen Institute for Immunology, the ideal candidate is a self-motivated team player who can work closely with immunologists, bioinformaticians, and software developers. The ideal candidate is an excellent communicator who can translate ideas into solid data analysis plans and testable hypotheses, an experienced tool developer who can standardize internal and external analysis scripts, a good organizer who can manage multiple projects simultaneously, a quick learner who can adapt new methodologies to achieve goals, and a tireless worker who can complete projects under time constraints. The successful candidate will mentor and manage a small group of Bioinformatics Analysts.
R&D Software Engineering Manager, Advanced Technology Laboratory Special Warfare Division - University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX USA
This position will manage a team of software engineers and software QA staff tasked with creating and maintaining front-end data analysis software throughout its lifecycle. The employee will organize the software team, set high level system goals and strategies, ensure funding is available to support the team, and will be the primary external point of contact for high-level communications.
Product Manager, Research Computing Products - Harvard Business School, Boston MA USA
Reporting to the Managing Director, Research Technologies in HBS’s IT department, the Product Manager defines product strategies and engages with faculty and partners to define the functionality and roadmaps for our research computing platforms and products. The Product Manager collaborates in the design, development, testing, delivery, and support of high-quality and innovative research computing products that advance HBS's research mission. They oversee the research product and service deployment and support in both on-premises and cloud environments. They are responsible for ensuring that research computing products and services meet the faculty's research goals and comply with IT standards.
Associate Director, Research Computing - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY USA
The Associate Director, Research Computing provides leadership and vision for the development, support and maintenance of campus research computing and cloud services, including high performance and quantum computing. This also includes customer support for system enhancements and day-to-day operations for users, system integration, and development/rollout of technical solutions.
Team Lead for HPC Engineering - Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge TN USA
We're hiring a Team Lead for HPC Engineering to focus on the growth and management of our team, and providing oversight of technical projects/operations in direct support of our customers and projects! This position resides in the emerging Technologies and Computing (ETAC) group in the Research Computing Support (RCS) division of the Information Technology Services Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ETAC focuses on support researcher’s HPC computing, Data engineering and management, Infrastructure as a Service, and new technology needs. Staff charge directly to projects or programs, and not to a centralized budget. Our goal is to enable research while protecting ORNL assets, especially from cyber incidents. Team Leads manage staff, assigning them to projects in many directorates. RCS staff who support those directorates report directly to you. The expectation is that a small amount of your time will be spent on research projects as well. Routine meetings with the customer (those providing funding) and the directorate management are needed to ensure IT needs are being met, and to manage workload as projects ramp up and down.
Research and Innovation Manager, Health - Genome British Columbia, Vancouver BC CA
The Research and Innovation Manager, Health is a collaborative member of the Research and Innovation team and works seamlessly across the organization. Reporting to the Director, Research and Innovation, Health, you will work with the Research and Innovation leadership to implement the research and innovation mandate towards the strategic goals of the organization. You will engage external partners to catalyze partnerships across the innovation and research ecosystem in BC, consistent with the organization’s mandate. You are one of the main points of contact at Genome BC for funded project teams and you are responsible for monitoring projects to assess progress and maximize outcomes. You are motivated to excel in your position, support your team members and you believe that genomics has the potential to positively impact the lives of British Columbians.
Distinguished/Advisory HPC Engineer - Data in Science Technologies, Remote USA
Design and implement high-performance computing clusters to ensure they meet the required performance, scalability, reliability and availability standards. Deploy and maintain cluster management software such as Bright Cluster Manager to streamline administration and operations. Set up, configure, and troubleshoot HPC job schedulers like SLURM, LSF, or UGE to optimize job scheduling and resource allocation. Install, configure and maintain containers, container applications and orchestration tools. Deploy and manage advanced health monitoring systems to ensure the HPC infrastructure is operating efficiently and to preemptively identify issues.
Project Manager, CanDIAPL, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics - University of Toronto, Toronto ON CA
The Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics is one of the leading research centres for astronomy in Canada. Under the direction of the Project Lead at the Dunlap Institute, the incumbent acts as the project manager for the Canadian Data-Intensive Astrophysics PLatform (CanDIAPL, pronounced ‘candy apple’). CanDIAPL is a multi-million-dollar project that will build core computing hardware infrastructure and software pipeline infrastructure to enable groundbreaking science with large-scale telescope surveys at optical and radio wavelengths. The CanDIAPL project manager will have oversight of the technical and budgetary success of the project in partnership with the CanDIAPL Science Board and institutional partners University of Alberta, McGill University, Queen’s University, and Western University.
Research Lead, Machine Learning for Environment and Sustainability - Alan Turing Institute, London UK
Currently, Turing is undergoing a restructuring, moving towards a challenge-led model with three Grand Challenges (Environment & Sustainability, Health, Defence & National Security), underpinned by cross-cutting Fundamental Research. This new Turing 2.0 model focuses on world-class science and innovation and aims to generate high-quality research and translate it into real-world impact and deployment. In the Environment & Sustainability Grand Challenge, we will use machine learning and AI as a transformative technology to benefit planet and people. The primary purpose of these roles is to lead a team of researchers to conduct internationally leading research and ensure effective pull-through towards impact. The Research Lead will be key to delivering internationally leading research in machine learning for the research areas listed above. This role will be part of the Environment & Sustainability Grand Challenge, and you will be reporting to the mission lead and work closely with other Senior Research Associates, PhD students and interns within the same area. You will be required to manage a small group of Senior Research Associates and other early-career members of the team.
Research Lead - Fundamental Research in AI for Physical Systems - Alan Turing Institute, London UK
Currently, Turing is undergoing a restructuring, moving towards a challenge-led model with three Grand Challenges (Environment & Sustainability, Health, Defence & National Security). This will be supported by a cross-cutting Fundamental Research in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence priority area. This new Turing 2.0 model focuses on world-class science and innovation and aims to generate high-quality research and translate it into real-world impact and deployment. We are looking for highly skilled, experienced Research Leads to lead and enable the delivery of this ambitious work, initially centred around developing AI for Physical Systems. Within the Fundamental Research area, we will provide foundational theory, methods and tools to advance the state-of-the art of the use of Artificial Intelligence to model, predict and control physical systems. The aim is to develop the next generation of fundamental ML and AI methods, tools and theory to enable modelling, prediction and control of physical systems. To achieve this, we are creating a multi-disciplinary, mission-driven team which will collaborate with national & international centres of excellence to achieve its goals. Initially, we will be focusing on three strands.
Lead Bioinformatics Engineer - Genomics England, Cambridge UK
Our Lead Bioinformatics Engineer is an experienced bioinformatician with strong competencies in software engineering, data engineering and/or infrastructure. This role is expected to provide technical expertise and leadership across multiple squads in the bioinformatics directorate. In particular, this Lead role will play a key part in accelerating genomics research in Genomics England by leading the development of scalable bioinformatics pipelines and cloud-based infrastructure solutions.
Research Project Manager - Bristol Centre for Supercomputing - University of Bristol, Bristol UK
This role is a key member of the support team for the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS) which operates the Isambard-AI, Isambard 3 and High-Performance Computing programmes. In this role you will be providing project management support for current and future projects within BriCS. As our Project Manager, you'll play a vital role in supporting groundbreaking initiatives such as Isambard 3, Isambard-AI, and upcoming AI and High-Performance Computing programs. Imagine being at the forefront of innovation, providing essential project management support to our cutting-edge projects.
Principal Data Science Analyst - GEN AI - Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN USA
Work with knowledge architects, informaticians and clinicians at Mayo, and partner outside companies to develop and deploy applications to bring AI and analytic solutions to nontechnical users, often at the point of care.. Designs and develops scripts or software applications to support data management, data extraction, data analysis, and AI as required. This position may develop predictive and prescriptive models to address complex problems, discover insights, and identify opportunities using machine learning, statistical techniques, and data mining. Provides Consultative Services at an enterprise level to departments/divisions and/or may lead scientific projects. May have direct and indirect reports.
Head of Engineering - Far AI, Berkeley CA USA
FAR AI is a non-profit AI research institute focused on ensuring the safe development and deployment of frontier AI technologies. FAR AI is seeking applications for a Head of Engineering to lead and scale our engineering team, driving the technical execution of our frontier AI safety research projects.
AIML - Sr Responsible AI Research Manager, Data & ML Innovation - Apple, Pittsburgh PA USA
Apple's Data and ML Innovation team focuses on innovative technologies, methodologies, and research to enable fantastic user experiences and advance the frontier of machine learning. Our team is looking to hire a technical leader with a strong record in Applied Research passionate about ML and Human-Computer Interaction, mainly as applied to the responsibility, fairness, and safety of Generative AI. In this role, you will lead and build an organization accountable for researching and making ML technologies that enable breakthrough user experiences while upholding Apple's values and quality standards.
Research Technology Lead Software Engineer - Stanford Medicine Health Care, Palo Alto CA USA
The Software Lead Engineer, IT Software Applications provides frontend / backend technical domain leadership for those involved in the development, design and optimization of one or more information technology and systems functions supporting hospital business processes and technical information systems platforms. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, analysis, selection and modification components, APIs/SDK for the development of hospital systems, application software, installation of network hardware/software and database management. Ensures infrastructure architecture standards maximize efficiency and support platform compatibility. Usually requires subject matter knowledge of user group for practical application of system characteristics. Coordinates delivery of services to user groups and ensures IT service is uninterrupted. Mentors, develops, and evaluates staff to ensure the efficient operation of the function.
Chief Research Data Architect - University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA USA
UCLA’s Office of Advanced Research Computing (OARC), a dynamic department within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activities (ORCA), is seeking a visionary Chief Research Data Architect (CRDA). This is a unique opportunity to join a leading R1 university and play a pivotal role in advancing data-driven research and scholarship. As the Chief Research Data Architect, you will leverage your extensive data engineering background and collaborative experience with researchers to help build UCLA’s next-generation research data and computing environment. Your role will be crucial in creating supportive data services that enable cutting-edge academic research. You will work closely with UCLA researchers, faculty-led research committees, and various campus partners to understand and address university research and data support needs.
Director, New Technology Engineering AI/ML Platforms - Microsoft, Redmond WA USA
We are looking for a passionate, driven, and intellectually curious Director to join the New Technology Engineering (NTE) organization. NTE is responsible for leading the engineering, validation, and production readiness for new cloud service capacity. This role has a direct and measurable impact in delivering Azure capacity leveraging server platform capabilities and architectures. Our key focus is in reducing the Time-to-Market (TTM) for new services and ensuring the quality and scalability of infrastructure capacity to enable Microsoft customers. A successful candidate for this role will leverage their analytical, leadership, and communication skills to drive the team to deliver innovative solutions that will transform the way our customers interact with our products.
Research Computing Lead, College of Engineering - University of Wisconsin Madison, Madison WI USA
The College of Engineering at UW-Madison seeks a research computing lead to expand both our research computing services, and to help researchers access those services quickly and efficiently. This position will help define the technical services needed to support researchers, consult on scientific computing needs, advocate for campus-level computing services on behalf of our researchers, as well as lead a team supporting research computing. This position will be expected to perform the following tasks as a part of their responsibilities: organize and document our research computing services; gather information from researchers on their selection and use of relevant computing services, systems, tools, and computing strategies; advise researchers on optimal use of research computing resources; translate researchers needs into recommendations to technical staff for new research services or refinement of existing services; coordinate with other researcher computing providers and facilitators to improve research computing in the college and at campus-level; document, train on, and demonstrate research computing services; frame and draft operating principles and policies to promote equitable, reliable, secure, and scalable research computing services.
Program Manager, Quantum Accelerator - University of Calgary, Calgary AB CA
Reporting to the Manager QAI Accelerator, the Program Manager, Quantum Accelerator will work closely with our program partner, the role's focus is to build a startup accelerator program in Calgary that supports quantum and quantum-adjacent technologies and solutions. The candidate will be responsible for developing the programming, operational processes, securing program facilitators and establishing a roster of coaches to support the participants. The candidate will also be involved in the scouting and selection of the startups participating in the program.
Senior Engineering Manager - DNAstack, Toronto ON CA
DNAstack's mission is to accelerate precision medicine and research by developing and providing innovative software solutions for genomics and multi-omics data. We aim to make complex biomedical data more accessible, interoperable, and actionable, thereby empowering researchers, clinicians, and institutions to derive meaningful insights and improve health outcomes. As a Senior Engineering Manager, you will lead and mentor a talented team of engineers, driving innovation and excellence in our product development. Lead and manage the engineering team to deliver high-quality software solutions aligned with DNAstack's strategic goals. Collaborate with product management to define and manage the engineering roadmap, ensuring alignment with business objectives and customer needs. Foster a culture of innovation, continuous improvement, and engineering excellence within the team. Ensure robust and scalable architecture and design of the platform, adhering to best practices in software engineering.
Principal Software Engineer - HPC Benchmarking, Applications, and Workflows - Microsoft, Various and Remote USA
As a Principal Software Engineer - HPC Benchmarking, Applications, and Workflows in the Azure HPC Workflows team, you will work with complex scientific HPC and AI workflows, benchmark HPC systems, analyze and tune the performance of HPC applications and workflows, and project future system performance. You will also collaborate closely with computational scientists and supercomputing centers to develop, port, and tune complex scientific workflows and applications at massive scale. These workflows may combine disparate types of computations, including modelling and simulation, data analysis, and machine learning and artificial intelligence. The workflows may also involve integrating and managing data from many disparate sources. This opportunity will also allow you to partner closely with the rest of the Azure HPC team to make recommendations to Azure leadership about future technologies. Your mission will be to ensure that Azure Supercomputers are the best platforms for running HPC applications and cutting-edge scientific workflows!
Lead AI Scientist, Rosen Center for Advanced Computing - Purdue University, West Lafayette IN USA
With limited oversight from manager, you will be responsible as the subject matter expert for leading, designing, and managing projects that support AI on large-scale research computing systems. You will provide measurable input and engage in active development of collaborative partnerships with university researchers, centers, staff, national partners, and/or vendors to lead implementation of data analytics and AI projects needed to drive Purdue’s cutting-edge research. You will utilize creativity and innovation to solve complex computational problems raised by researchers and help reduce research bottlenecks. You will consult with researchers to identify and determine requirements based on their unique research needs, provide data science and AI expertise, and collaborate with them to develop proposal opportunities. You will lead the evaluation and deployment of various custom and enterprise AI tools and use data to communicate with leadership and other stakeholders. You will design and deliver training workshops on tools that support AI research. You may be responsible for coaching and reviewing the work of lower-level professionals.
Associate Vice Provost, Research Computing - University of Louisville, Louisville KY USA
The AVP of Research Computing provides strategic leadership for the ITS Research Computing department. The AVP guides university-wide efforts to develop, implement, and maintain an agile, sustainable strategic plan and support a framework for research computing aligned with the needs of the University’s growing research enterprise. In collaboration with campus stakeholders, the AVP determines needs, establishes priorities, and allocates University resources in research computing, data, and security infrastructure and personnel to meet the evolving needs of campus researchers and educators.
Principal Site Reliability Engineering Manager - Azure, various UK
Would you like to join one of the fastest-growing teams within Microsoft Azure Engineering? Are you constantly customer-obsessed, and focused on enhancing customer experience? Are you passionate about cloud computing and love the challenge of solving the most complex technical problems? As the Principal SRE Manager, you lead a team of Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) for a highly strategic customer, contributing directly to lifting the overall platform reliability and security by working horizontally across the customer hardware and Azure. This role enables you to contribute to the understanding of Site Reliability Engineering and improving our customer experience. Experience with HPC infrastructure and workflows
Head of AI Labs - Next15, London UK
We’re looking for an experienced Data Product Specialist, with a background in AI and innovation leadership, to join the Next 15 Labs, our central AI research and innovation hub. Your main remit is to drive AI innovation, conceptualising and prototyping solutions to the significant challenges faced by our brands and clients. Experiments will be carried out through a combination of internal team and partners, with a clear process and outputs which can be leveraged for full product development and/or wider learnings. It is expected that much of the experimentation will be focused on untried and untested solution areas, with some focus on also ensuring we maintain a foundational tool capability for our less self-sufficient brands to leverage.
Head of Research Computing - The London School of Economics and Political Science, London UK
Accountable and responsible for ensuring that LSE's research computing infrastructure, platforms, data, and application management capabilities are aligned with the University's objectives, needs, and service levels. This role helps guide and evolve these capabilities over time to match aspirations, strategies, and emerging technological possibilities. This senior leadership role delivers and assures the technology which underpins and enables the entire University’s research activities, acting as an expert advisor and strategist. The role involves laying out and delivering approaches that support the University's future research needs and goals. The postholder will lead, manage, and improve the research IT infrastructure, platforms, and application management practices and delivery. They will manage support levels and incidents of various criticality and deliver services, infrastructure, and data that support the institution’s research platforms.
Lecturer/Core Instrument Facility Manager - Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville NC USA
The primary purpose of the position is to provide management of the Core Instrument Facility, including the routine cryogen refill of the JEOL 400 MHz NMR. The position supports the research and teaching activities of the department by ensuring that all Core Instrument Facility instruments are operational; providing training to students, faculty, staff, and external users on the safe operation of the instruments; assists with data collection and analysis; and enforcing laboratory safety procedures of all laboratory users. The position requires excellent communication skills with outside stakeholders, such as instrument technicians and vendors, as well as detailed an organized recordkeeping of instrument service, chemical and instrument inventory, and training workshops.
Structural Biology Facility cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) Manager - Northwestern, Evanston IL USA
Northwestern University seeks to recruit an enthusiastic and motivated cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) Facility Manager to join the Structural Biology Facility (SBF), located on the Evanston campus. The successful applicant will be responsible for managing instrumentation and contributing to basic and translational research programs on both the Evanston and Chicago campuses. The SBF cryo-EM facility currently houses a TFS Glacios and JEOL 1400 TEM. In addition, a new TFS Krios G4 will be installed in early 2025. The Glacios is equipped with a Selectrix energy filter and a Falcon 4i direct electron detector. Several instruments for sample preparation are also available as part of the SBF.
Bioinformatics & Perioperative Analytics Project Manager - UCLA Health, Los Angeles CA USA
In this role, you will perform the duties of a Project Manager and Data Analyst for the department’s Education program and the Division of Bioinformatics and Analytics in the Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine (DAPM). Responsibilities include overseeing projects and initiatives, developing and managing the scope of projects, collaborations with stakeholders, and development of expectations to achieve goals successfully within timelines. You will also be responsible for data analysis for research project by leveraging technical skills while maintaining accuracy and enabling improved data-driven business decisions. The Project Manager aligns projects and designs strategic goals/ procedures with the department’s business needs, mission, vision, and University/departmental guidelines. You will also provide valuable insights for informed decision-making.
Cryo-EM Manager, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics - University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN USA
The University of Minnesota is seeking an experienced cryo-transmission electron microscopist in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics who will work in the Characterization Facility (CharFac), which houses a variety of transmission and scanning electron microscopes in addition to other biological and advanced materials characterization instruments. New acquisitions include a cryo-electron transmission microscope (cryo-TEM; Glacios 2) and a cryo-focused ion beam-scanning electron microscope (cryo-FIB-SEM; Aquilos 2). The applicant should have expertise in cryo-TEM maintenance, high-resolution cryo-TEM imaging, specimen preparation, and interpretation of results from TEM.
Cryogenics Facility Manager (Research Assistant Professor) - University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA USA
The Department of Physics and Astronomy, with Shared Research Support Services, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and the Western Pennsylvania Quantum Infrastructure Core, invites applications from individuals with a Ph.D. or equivalent in Engineering or Physics or a closely related discipline for the Cryogenics Facility Manager position at a rank of Research Assistant Professor. Applicants should have experience with cryogenic equipment including helium recovery plants and dilution refrigerators. The main duties of this position will be overseeing the operation and maintenance of the Pitt Cryogenics Plant and recovery network and the maintenance, repair, and upgrade of cryogenic equipment within various laboratories and facilities within the Dietrich School. The incumbent is required to regularly run the cryogenics plant, maximize recovery from the system, and coordinate maintenance and reporting efforts of the plant among the SRSS team. The position will work with the Director of Quantum Infrastructure, faculty, and the electronics and machine shops to design and optimize new and existing cryostats and components and provide or arrange for advanced component maintenance.
Computing and Technology Manager, Dept of Chemical Engineering - University of Washington, Seattle WA USA
The Department of Chemical Engineering (ChemE) and Industrial & Systems Engineering has an outstanding opportunity for a Computing and Technology Manager. We are looking for someone to provide a full spectrum of computer resources and services to approximately 270 faculty, staff, and students. This position offers a variety of responsibilities that include technology management, educational support, training and user education, systems administration, technology design and planning, research support, and technical maintenance of our website. There will be professional development opportunities to expand your technical savvy and to grow into the position.
Senior Technical Program Manager, High Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Microsoft, Remote USA
The Azure High Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) product team drives the hardware roadmap, software, and services that enable our users and partners to run technical computing workloads in Azure - HPC simulations, AI & machine learning, remote visualization, and immersive gaming experiences. The Customer Solutions and Innovations (CSI) team is part of the HPC and AI product team in Azure Engineering and focuses on in-bound product feedback born from hands-on customer and partner engagements. The CSI team works closely with important customers, ISVs and system integrators on some of the largest and most interesting development and delivery projects for Microsoft. This role is fully remote, and successful candidates can be located anywhere within the USA. Travel would eventually be 25-50% and the role requires the ability to work with clients remotely.
HPC-DES Group Leader (R&D Manager 4) - Los Alamos National Lab, Los Alamos NM USA
The HPC-DES Group Leader (GL) is a key member and contributor in HPC Division's leadership team. The HPC-DES GL is responsible for supporting the strategic direction for the group, providing oversight on R&D initiatives, working with, and supporting the division's leadership, developing, and maintaining good customer and cross-organizational relations, promoting a strong safety, security, and ethics culture, and assisting the HPC Division Office on other duties as assigned.
Innovation Project Manager - Research, Innovation and Discovery - Nova Scotia Health, Halifax NS CA
Reporting to the Director of Innovation, the Innovation Project Manager is responsible for the management and coordination of large-scale Innovation projects. The Innovation Project Manager is responsible for overseeing and guiding the tactical planning, design, implementation, coordination, and integration of complex projects across NS Health. This includes providing guidance to Innovation Hub team members, tracking and reporting on outcomes using the latest project management tools, and methodologies, and providing overall coordination of multiple projects in order to optimize efficiencies.
Senior Manager, TigerData Technical Service - Princeton University, Princeton NJ USA
The Senior Manager, TigerData Technical Service will guide the implementation and support of the TigerData service, a comprehensive set of data storage and management tools and services that provides storage capacity, reliability, functionality, and performance to campus. Working with TigerData leadership and critical partners across campus, you will implement the strategic roadmap and service model for TigerData. You will manage the rollout of TigerData to adopters across campus through outreach, provide technical guidance and training, troubleshoot support requests, and coordinate the enhancements of features within TigerData. Working in the Advanced Systems and Storage Management team in Research Computing, you will partner with technical staff, the Library, and the Office of the Dean for Research to establish best practices and provide timely and creative support for data management, storage, and retrieval using TigerData.
Senior Manager, Center Administration, Center for Computational Neuroscience, Flatiron Institute - Simons Foundation, New York NY USA
The mission of the Flatiron Institute, a division of the Simons Foundation, is to advance scientific research through computational methods, including data analysis, theory, modeling and simulation. It currently houses five science centers focused on computational astrophysics (CCA), computational biology (CCB), computational mathematics (CCM), computational neuroscience (CCN), and computational quantum physics (CCQ), and a scientific computing core, as well as the Initiative for Computational Catalysis. Reporting to the Center Director, the Senior Manager for Center Administration is responsible for planning and organizing the Center's financial affairs, administering its research and educational programs, and coordinating the Center's activities.
Director, Quantum Computing Applied Research - NVIDIA, Santa Clara CA USA
At NVIDIA, we’re solving the world’s most exciting problems with our unique approach to accelerated computing. We’re looking for passionate technologists with deep quantum computing domain expertise to lead technical path-finding. As Director for Quantum Computing Applied Research, you'll lead our technical path-finding efforts, working with cross functional teams in Product, Engineering and Applied Research to develop innovative technologies that advance the state of Quantum Computing and intercept NVIDIA products. The Quantum Computing organization is a small, strong, and visible group both inside and outside of NVIDIA while Quantum Information Science is an exciting area to drive strategy. We need a self-starting leader to continue to grow this area. Do you have the rare blend of both technical and product skills with a passion for groundbreaking technology? If so, we would love to learn more about you!
Senior Project Manager - School of Biomedical Informatics, UTHealth - University of Texas, Houston TX USA
We are looking for a Full-Time Project Manager to join the BIG-Arc department within the UTHealth McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatic in Houston, TX. In this position, you will be responsible for establishing timelines for deliverables with PI's and management, ensuring tasks are created in our PM system and reviewing them with the director. You'll also keep track of project statuses and reporting, team allocations, and developing documentation. This is a hybrid position.
Cloud & High-Performance Computing (HPC) Manager - University of New Hampshire, Durham NH USA
This position is a key member of the Research Computing Team as the Manager for Cloud and High Performance Computing (HPC). This individual will be responsible for management and delivery of research cloud offerings, HPC, storage systems, and supervising staff to meet strategic and operational needs. Accountable for the development of processes to manage operations, assist in technical standards development, assist in architecture development, leadership and employee development. The role will collaborate with researchers, venders / service providers, infrastructure and operations groups to create and support an operational environment for new and existing services supported by Cloud and HPC Infrastructure.
Project Manager at the Responsible Technology institute - University of Oxford, Oxford UK
An exciting opportunity has arisen to join Professor Marina Jirotka’s team in the Responsible Technology Institute (RTI). The RTI is an international centre of excellence on responsible technology. It serves to establish a creative and robust community to discuss and develop culturally nuanced approaches to responsibility and responsible innovation (RI). It takes an international focus on the societal challenges presented by new and emergent technologies, unpacks complexities around understandings of responsibility and different regulatory environments, and addresses gaps that exist in industry-related approaches to responsible technology. You will manage the programme of work conducted within the RTI, and will promote and build its global reputation.