Research Computing Teams #128, 8 July 2022
I heard a number of answers back about what sorts of service request processes people were using:
- A lot of software development teams, of course, took bug reports and small feature enhancement request via GitHub/GitLab/Jira etc ticketing systems
- Several groups are using Znuny, a fork of OTRS
- Someone juggling multiple projects used a timetracker to make sure reasonable amounts of time were being spent on various external projects
- A technical leader of an internal platform team said that it’s mostly “’support channel in Slack’ With complex issues moving to email” (but they had succeeded in at least getting the requests into the channel rather than DMs!)
One data science team had a longer answer that I want to quote here:
For a relatively small team of a few staff and about 10 students taking about 250 consultation requests a year one on one help on data science topics, not help tickets for a service), we use […] – basically a form + spreadsheet (google forms/sheet would work too). We have columns to track the status (incoming request, in progress, completed, etc.) and who has responded/been assigned, along with the info about the request. We don’t put other significant updates on the consults in this sheet – just for tracking status. We make sure our team brings the status of everything up to date at team meetings. Requests ping a slack channel when they come in, and we determine who will respond. So we can make sure that someone took each consult, even if the sheet doesn’t get updated immediately (it should be, but it doesn’t always happen).
For longer projects, we have only 6-12 or so per year – those go on a separate sheet for recordkeeping/reporting. All updates are communicated via team meetings or 1:1 meetings.
That same team is also working with other allied teams to figure out some kind of way to have a shared integrated history of interactions with researchers.
I found all your answers really useful! I think it’s an important topic, too - it ties in a bit to the last newsletter topic.
We’re in the expertise business, and there’s a spectrum of ways to bundle that expertise into services and products and make it available to researchers.
For researcher efforts that require cutting-edge expertise for an open problem it makes makes sense to expose that via longer, open-ended service engagements; breadth of experience makes sense to expose to the researcher via a consultation model with productized services (services, but a bit more structured, with a well defined process internally and well-defined scope externally); and efficient procedural work makes sense to bundle as at least semi-automated, cookie-cutter products.
All else being equal, ideally a team will have a portfolio of ways to engage researchers along that spectrum. There’s a bunch of reasons:
- Having a range of offerings means you can engage with different research groups where they are and based on their needs
- With a range of expertise offerings, there’s growth opportunities in domain knowledge for individual team members
- There’s a path for efficiency - initial novel engagements at the high-expertise end, if they keep coming up, can get turned into productized services, and then (maybe) products.
- Diversification means there’s fewer single-points of funding failure that can happen.
I mentioned “exposing” the expertise to researcher clients a few ways; my mental model here is of an API. And that’s why I’m so interested in how teams handle incoming requests for work from researchers. These different services lend themselves to different “APIs”, to different kinds of work request models.
The sort of traditional request/ticket trackers work really well for very transactional requests, like for IT service requests or for Utility or product interactions. “Please reset my password”, “login5 is down”, “bug report: when I enter zero in the form I get the wrong answer”, “please update to the latest version of this dataset”. There’s not a lot of scoping or diagnosis or collaboration here. There’s an issue or a service request, a couple backs-and-forths, and it’s fixed. Metrics like how quickly tickets get addressed make sense - faster is better. These systems are time-tested and efficient approaches for these sorts of brief and somewhat shallow interactions.
But they’re kind of crummy for longer-term, more collaborative engagements! If in my personal life I want to have a conversation with an expert to help me with something - a lawyer or a doctor or a contractor to help work out a remodelling effort - I don’t file a ticket. I certainly don’t have metrics about ticket closure time - some problems are bigger than others and may kick off months long engagements, and that’s not obviously good or bad. The bigger engagement certainly produces documentation about the effort and the work product, but it’s not merely a series of back-and-forths on a web form or email - it’s much more distilled than that. Maybe if I don’t realize the question I thought was a simple request is actually Big Deal, I start the conversation in some sort of transactional system, but it eventually gets migrated out.
There’s no one-size-fits-all here. As with the team using slack that migrates to email, and the team using two different systems for two different engagement types, different work is just different and needs to be treated differently. I wish there were better tools for us to use! But if there’s any simple answers out there, I haven’t seen it yet.
Thanks to everyone who responded! Now on to the roundup.
Managing Teams
How to be a Recruiter for RCD: Part I and Part II - Lisa Lowe, L3 Scientific Applications Consulting
The time’s long passed when we could simply post the generic HR job req for our openings on the institution’s career website and wait for the applications to roll in. I used to say “That may work for postdocs and faculty positions…”, but it increasingly doesn’t even work for postdoc openings.
These two articles from new newsletter community member Lowe lays out the work that needs to be done to get good candidates into the application process these days:
- You need to be a recruiter
- Identify your target audience and figure out how to reach them
- Send targeted, customized
Yes, that’s a lot of work, but that’s what it takes:
I recently learned that in the space of 14 months, our management found only a single candidate who they felt was qualified enough to interview. After I did a recruiting blitz, they got 6 in the space of 5 days.
In part I, Lowe gives a worked example of looking for a junior HPC systems engineer. She targeted two groups of IT professionals - those who have recently gone back to school for training, and those looking to switch career paths. Then she specifically reached out to career services and/or departments at nearby institutions for the back to school crowd, and IT affiliation groups for the career change market.
In Part II, Lowe shares the case of a more specialized mid- to senior-level role, where now you have to work a little harder:
- Keep an eye on other jobs, so you know what else is out there (and it has other benefits, too!)
- Potentially contact individuals now, with personal mesages
- Keep an eye out for contractors
- Be more intentional about identifying and communicating the strong points and uniquenesses of your org, particularly for those individuals.
How Do Individual Contributors Get Stuck? A Primer - Camille Fournier
Fournier lists some common places for individual contributors to get stuck - such as when they need to:
- Finish the last 10–20% of a project
- Figure out where to start: Starting something from scratch, or working with unfamiliar code or systems or teams
- Do a different kind of work like project planning or navigating the organization or coordinating with external partners
- Ask for help
- Deal with surprises or unexpected setbacks
- Pull the trigger and going into prod
- Say no
And that they can sidetrack themselves by:
- Brainstorming/architecture
- Researching possible solutions forever
- Refactoring
- Helping other people instead of doing their assigned tasks
- Jumping on fires even when not on-call
- Working on side projects instead of the main project
The problem with Fighting Fires - Ed Batista
It’s worth hearing this simple message from time to time. Fighting fires feels great and important - it’s very satisfying! But as managers and leaders our job is to coordinate firefighting and - more importantly - fire prevention efforts. Constant firefighting is, too often, a symptom of valuing activity over effectiveness.
Technical Leadership
Learn the weekly rituals you should master as a software project manager - Jade Rubick
Project management, like people management, is something we’re typically thrust into without any training. If we came from research, we have some experience of managing research projects, which is good - but there the timescale is longer and no one is depending on our results month-to-month. RCD projects are different. Linking to this post from elsewhere, Rubick writes something that squares with my experience with RCD teams:
I see most engineering managers gravitate to two extremes with project management: either they don’t do much at all, or they go all-in on traditional project management approaches.
He outlines pragmatic, aggressively simple, approach to project management of the kinds we’re usually involved in; the context is in software development but it applies more broadly:
- Identify the next milestone - go from milestone to milestone, the next never any further than a month off
- Update your project plan - weekly, spend an hour or so doing this: not in any fancy tool, just a document
- Update your risk registry - again, not in any fancy tool
- Send a weekly project update - a clear update to those involved in the project.
He argues that this should only take a couple hours a week for the kinds of projects we’re most likely leading. (Obviously we might be involved in more elaborate projects - construction of a new facility - but we’re probably not running those!). Once that’s done there will be other things to do to coordinate the actual work that the plan’s for. But higher-level planning, Rubick argues, doesn’t have to involve huge tools and long documents. Project planning is to support the work and the people doing or relying on it, it’s not an end in itself.
Managing Your Own Career
A Conversation with Mathematical Consultant John D. Cook - Krešimir Josić, SIAM News
Going solo is always an option for people with highly specialized skills. Josić interviews the famously prolific Cook, whose blog posts or tweets you’ve almost certainly read, about his experience starting his own consultancy.
Product Management and Working with Research Communities
Huge congratulations to Harvard for going big - 15 open positions as part of the creation of a University Research Computing Office, growing FASRC (the faculty of arts & sciences HPC centre) while adding data management and software development as part of a University-wide portfolio.
Research Software Development
Pair Programming - James Cross
Pair programming is one of those things where it’s not necessarily hard, but it’s easy to do wrong. Like everything, in our role, having clear shared expectations beforehand makes the difference.
The short list of recommendations here are to have two people each of one defined roles (driver and navigator), set time limits at the beginning, switch periodically, and still do code review at the end - the argument is that the synchronous nature of pair programming still can lead to groupthink and so could use external review.
On the other hand, we’re told not to worry too much about who to match with who - sure, there’s advantages to having a more experienced mentor a junior, but there’s advantages to pairing peers, too, and having the juniors navigate is a useful experience.
RSE Group Informational Interview Template - USRSE
Thinking of starting a research software development group in your institution? Know of some others that already exist in the same kind of environment? This Google Doc is an outline of some questions to ask in an informational interview, to find out how they’re organized, what’s worked, what hasn’t, how funding works, and more.
Research Data Management and Analysis
Data Ethics Club: Creating a collaborative space to discuss data ethics - Di Cara et al, Cell Patterns, 100537
Data ethics is a very topical and interdisciplinary area, and a way to engage a group of potential collaborators around data data issues and researchers. The authors here describe the success of a data science topical discussion group at their effort:
Data Ethics Club is a fortnightly reading and discussion group held virtually that is currently hosted by University of Bristol staff and students. The hour-long lunchtime meeting is free to attend and open to everyone.
Discussions are organized and structured and recorded via a github repository (which has a lot of great material there already).
Research Computing Systems
More accuracy with less precision - Lang et al, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 146:4358-4370
This paper was from October, and the announcement was actually made last May but somehow I missed it. It thus won’t be a surprise to people who follow weather and climate simulations more than I do, but maybe others will be as startled as I was:
Reducing the numerical precision of the forecast model of the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) from double to single precision results in significant computational savings without negatively affecting forecast accuracy […] ECMWF’s ensemble and deterministic forecasts will run operationally at single precision from IFS model cycle 47R2 onwards.
The imbalance between memory-bandwidth and compute-power available in research computing systems has been growing worse and worse over time. More and more groups are trying to figure out how they can use less memory, or at least bandwidth, in their computations. Reducing the precision of variables is one way to do this. We’ve seen reduced precision in AI, of course, and there’s growing interest in mixed-precision methods (here’s a recent review for linear algebra and another for other methods).
But I hadn’t realized that fairly staid ECMWF simulator, used for research but also for production weather forecasts, was running in production in single precision. What’s more, they used the computational and memory savings of switching from FP64 to FP32 to increase the vertical resolution, which lead to an increase in accuracy of the model (and makes comparison to medium- and extended- range forecasts easier).
Unless there are dramatic advances in memory bandwidth - either with memory technology or putting more computation closer to the memory - we’re going to see more of this. It’ll require a lot of interesting algorithmic work and code changes! But the benefits are pretty clear.
Filtering numbers quickly with SVE on Amazon Graviton 3 processors - Daniel Lemire
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we didn’t have to recompile code every time the next generation of processor had an incrementally better or bigger vector operations? Many new and upcoming generation Arm chips (yes, NVIDIA will have one) will have an old vector-processor inspired “scalable vector extensions” (SVE) instructions. As Lemire says,
What is unique about SVE is that you work with vectors of values, but without knowing specifically how long the vectors are. This is in contrast with conventional SIMD instructions (ARM NEON, x64 SSE, AVX) where the size of the vector is hardcoded.
RISC-V has something similar and I couldn’t be happier. I love the “back to the future” aspect of it, and hope that it eventually makes maintaining code across architectures easier as more processors adopt something related.
A look inside our sixth generation of server hardware - Eric Shobe and Jared Mednick, Dropbox
A quick overview of what Dropbox’s next generation of storage systems looks like - 20 PB/rack, with 100 drives per chassis with a single (!) 100 Gb NIC.
Emerging Technologies and Practices
How to Adopt an SRE Practice (When You’re not Google) - Jemiah Sius On
On tells us you don’t have to be Google-sized to adopt some Site Reliability (SRE) practices on your team. The main thing is have to have clear service level expectations, understand where the risks come from of not meeting them, and someone whose responsibility it is to guide the team towards meeting those expectations.
Random
Setting up a BGP Autonomous System.
Sketching methods are becoming widely used in large scientific data science, led in no small part by bioinformatics. Here’s a good overview of doing a min-hash similarity join - the code is in Scala for Spark, but the explanations are very clear and apply more broadly.
Join and Index (!?) with jq.
Dicts considered harmful? For data exchange, anyway.
I didn’t realize there was a publicly available, petabyte-scale web crawling dataset freely available - Common Crawl.
The challenges of running and steering Atari.
Yet another hopeful SQL replacement that’s more of a proper programming language: PRQL. I’d love to see one of these succeed someday, and yet here we are in 2022 with GitHub littered with the corpses of SQL replacements.
Rsync is a sadly under-appreciated tool. Here’s how it works.
An opinionated python testing style guide.
Why not just use an ad-hoc dewey-decimal type system to organize all your stuff? Johnny Decimal.
I love that embedded databases are now so commonly used and increasingly respected that there are articles like “SQLite or PostgreSQL? It’s Complicated!”
An introduction to looking at assembly code with gdb. If you’re interested in playing with these sorts of things, I can not recommend Godbolt’s Compiler Explorer highly enough.
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
Huge crop of interesting jobs this week. This week’s new-listing highlights are below; the full listing of 186 jobs is, as ever, available on the job board.
Lead Bioinformatician - Research Services - Genomics England, London UK
Our Lead Bioinformatician – Research Services is an experienced bioinformatician with strong competencies in genomic data analysis and research support. Through proactive collaborations and agile practices, the Lead position brings technical leadership and people management capacity within the chapter and across different squads/teams. Based on a solid understanding of Bioinformatics and challenges in large-scale whole genome analysis, as well as in building and using high-quality genomic data and analytical workflows, the Lead position directly contributes to the development of solutions and products that address the needs of our external and internal stakeholders
Principal Scientist - R&D Omics and Bioinformatics - Lonza, Slough UK
We are looking to recruit a Principal Scientist, to join our Omics and Informatics group within the Protein and Process Analytics R&D team. The Omics and Informatics group is seeking a highly motivated individual with a proved record in innovative workflow development, multiomics study design and biological data interpretation. This role requires specialisation in experimental Omics technologies, mass spectrometry and advanced data analysis tools for Proteomics, Metabolomics and/or Genomics/Transcriptomics. It is a high-level scientific position that will support leading edge innovative studies within Lonza Biologics.
Software Architect, Advanced Research and Engineering Center - PwC, Belfast UK
PwC and Invest NI have invested £40M in a new Advanced Research and Engineering Centre (ARC) based in our brand new state of the art office in Belfast. Our team of software specialists collaborate with business experts and academics to design, develop and launch products to support the Operate business. We are building a suite of connected and intelligent capabilities, adopting new and emerging technologies, and using the latest Agile and DevOps approaches to maximise our effectiveness. We now have the opportunity for a Software Architect to join our team working on greenfield projects. You will be joining our inclusive team that brings together diverse perspectives, making this a great place to innovate, have fun and to grow.
Lead Research Computing Engineer - Johnson Matthey, Sonning UK
Johnson Matthey’s vision is for a world that’s cleaner and healthier, today and for future generations. As a global leader in sustainable technologies, we apply our cutting-edge science to create solutions with our customers that make a real difference to the world around us. The successful candidate will join a new department that is focused on delivering excellent digital experiences for Johnson Matthey’s customers. To achieve this Johnson Matthey is continuing a multi-year investment in Technology, and our Research Computing Engineer Team role is part of the investment and expansion. It is a rare chance to shape the technical direction of a 200-year-old company.
Assistant Director, National Research & Data - Cancer Australia, Sydney AU
The Assistant Director, National Research & Data is one of three equivalent roles that provide leadership to high-performing teams in developing, implementing and evaluating national cancer control projects in line with Cancer Australia’s strategic goals. Contributing to the strategic direction of the NCC division and aligning planning and implementation with corporate goals and objectives. Assisting in the development and management of specified initiatives, including interpreting research findings to inform policy and/or technical guidance. Developing and managing relationships with stakeholders and engaging and collaborating to achieve outcomes and facilitate cooperation
Project Manager - Centre for Big Data Research in Health - University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW AU
A Project Manager plays a lead role within Centre for Big Data Research in Health, UNSW Medicine & Health in the design and establishment of a national enduring health data asset and associated data governance framework for the Australian research sector. The role entails developing project planning documentation, identifying and building appropriate project teams and initiating and overseeing the project, including managing all stakeholder engagement and quality assurance. The Project Manager reports to the Project Lead and has no direct reports.
Manager Clinical Systems and Data Analytics, Aged Care - The Salvation Army, Redfern NSW AU
Join the Care Quality and Compliance team at The Salvation Army Aged Care (TSAAC) in the capacity of Manager Clinical Systems and Data Analytics.
Team Leader, IMT Scientific Computing Services Technical Solutions - CSIRO, Various AU
The Scientific Computing Services (SCS) group in CSIRO Information Management & Technology (IMT) is seeking an experienced leader to lead the Technical Solutions team. The Technical Solutions team is responsible for providing support for a range of managed platforms for scientific research, such as CSIRO’s high-performance computing (HPC) facility, an internal research cloud and data storage systems. The team engages CSIRO researchers and delivers solutions to research projects based on project requirements. In addition, the team is also responsible for the management and deployment of a scientific software portfolio comprising both commercial and open-source applications, as well as the online delivery of user documentation.
Principal Bioinformatics Software Engineer, Java Development - Roche, Santa Clara CA or Remote USA
As a Principal Backend Software Engineer, you are joining a passionate software engineering team to build sequencing products to change patients’ lives. You will design, implement, and test software features & product infrastructure, primarily from a backend perspective while working with cloud technology - AWS, Serverless computing, Java, distributed platform, Spring Boot, and more. Ultimately, the software you produce will impact patient care globally.
Senior/Staff Bioinformatics Scientist - Cepheid, Sunnyvale CA or Remote USA
The Staff Bioinformatics Scientist will help drive bioinformatics projects related to the design of highly multiplexed molecular diagnostics through all stages of planning, design, computational verification and empirical validation in collaboration with experimental scientists and other team members. Primary responsibilities include identification of unique nucleic acid sequences and signatures in various organisms and creation of novel, automated methods for design of primers and probes in complex assays. This role involves extensive collaboration with Bioinformatics Engineers, Bioinformaticians, Molecular Biologists, and others at all stages of assay development from planning to commercialization. This position can be based Remotely or relocation assistance will be provided if you’d like to relocate to Sunnyvale, CA.
Staff Bioinformatics Scientist, Applications - Singular Genomics, San Diego CA or Remote USA
Singular Genomics is seeking a Staff Bioinformatics Scientist to support computational needs for the analysis of data from NGS-based assays supporting customer sample testing. This is a dynamic position that will broaden in scope and is ideal for someone who likes to be constantly challenged and solve problems as part of a team of highly motivated scientists. This position will have the opportunity to build a team.
Manager, Computational Bioinformatics - Pfizer, Cambridge MA USA
Pfizer is seeking a talented, self-motivated Manager, Computational Bioinformatics, with strong background in developing analytical algorithms, data processing pipelines, and data management to support data analytics and next generation sequencing (NGS) efforts in biomarker analysis in Early Clinical Development. The successful candidate will analyze data from next generation sequencing (NGS) and other high-dimensional omics data types, providing bioinformatics and data science support to various programs in the fast-paced environment of early clinical trials.
Senior Director, Research and Data Science - Broward College, Cypress Creek FL USA
This position provides executive-level data and develops tools to promote data informed Decision Support Systems (DSS) and Executive Decision Support (ESS). Provides thought leadership in research methods, technologies and direction to academic programs, administrative and support units. Assists the Chief Data Officer in designing and directing practitioner based quantitative and qualitative studies, policy analyses and evaluations using qualitative and mixed method practitioner research, surveys, statistical and mathematical predictive modeling, and advanced analytical/data science methodologies.
Manager, Research and Analytics: Analytics and Evaluation - CareQuest Institute for Oral Heath, Remote USA
The Manager, Research and Analytics is part of the Analytics and Evaluation team and is responsible for conducting, overseeing, and ensuring the integrity of data analytics and data science activities. They manage a team of analytics and biostatisticians to product research and applied analysis on issues related to oral health transformation. They work closely with colleagues in data engineering to manage the CareQuest data warehouse/data lake, implement data science solutions for oral health analysis, and develop and maintain internal and external data dashboards on organizational impact. They work closely with colleagues in publication and marketing/pr to develop publications that that advance oral health knowledge and solutions. In addition, the Manager, Research and Analytics is responsible for understanding data from a more informed perspective to help make accurate predictions of health outcome and process changes.
Bioinformatics Manager I, Data Solutions and Systems Biology - Frederick National Laboratory, Frederick MD USA
The Frederick National Laboratory is dedicated to improving human health through the discovery and innovation in the biomedical sciences, focusing on cancer, AIDS and emerging infectious diseases.Lead the rare disease informatics research project for ABCS. Provide scientific and technical leadership for bioinformatics and data science aspects of the project
Manage and supervise analysts supporting the project. Design and architect solutions for complex data integration aspects of rare disease research. Write, revise and submit scientific manuscripts on significant research findings. Interface with stakeholders, government sponsors and company management, and provide status reports, presentations, and application demonstrations
Head of Research Data and Digital - Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge MA or San Diego CA USA
Takeda Research is looking for a leader to lead the creation and implementation of a world class digital experience for scientists with long-term impact to discovery and development of new drugs for patients in need. This role is part of a global organization that works with diverse Takeda teams to drive and deliver Data, Digital and Technology Transformation. This digital leader is charged with creating innovative digital strategies that deliver results. Success in this role is centered on direct collaboration with scientists and technology teams to vision and create proof of concepts, as well as develop and execute a world-class, cutting-edge Data and Digital strategy to enable Takeda to deliver innovative science and first-in-class molecules.
Director, Cyber Data Science - Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto ON CA
As a Director, Cyber Data Science, we’re looking for an incredible individual that will help with the analysis, design, and implementation of data science / machine learning solutions using RBC’s enterprise suite of analytics tools to proactively detect Digital and Cyber threats.
Deputy Director, Massacheusetts Green HPC Center - MIT, Boston MA USA
The Deputy Director works with the Executive Director and senior staff to support the collaborative activities of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), including governance, service definition, data center infrastructure, shared research computing infrastructure, and business operations. In addition to pursuing specific initiatives, the Deputy Director will contribute to the flexibility of the organization by supplementing or standing in for the Executive Director and other senior staff during times of peak workload.
Director of Research Computing, FASRC - Harvard University, Boston MA USA
Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences (FAS) seeks a Director to lead its FAS Research Computing (FASRC) organization. The newly reconceived Director position reports jointly to the Assistant Dean of Research in the FAS Division of Science and to the Vice President for Information Technology & University Chief Information Officer in her capacity as FAS’ chief information officer. The Director will provide leadership in the ongoing development and management of research-computing resources for faculty across all of FAS’ divisions and thus will play an important role in advancing Harvard University’s research mission. The Director will lead a team of 25 experienced research computing professionals and will foster partnerships with PIs, researchers, and students to best support their research and scholarship. The Director will also work closely with Harvard University’s central technology function, other Harvard University research computing teams, and other partners and service providers to keep FAS research computing at the leading edge in a technically and fiscally sustainable way.
University Research Data Officer - Harvard University, Boston MA USA
Reporting jointly to the Vice Provost for Research as well as the Vice President and University CIO, the University Research Data Officer is charged with maturing Harvard’s research data governance practices. The incumbent will help coordinate strategic initiatives spanning the Harvard research enterprise, Information Technology, and Harvard Library, acting as liaison with key constituencies across campus – e.g., faculty, Harvard school leadership, and senior administrators. Their mission will be to evolve the university’s research data life cycle framework with input from faculty and administration to guide Harvard policy, process, and procedures for data
Project Manager, Exploratory Services and Resources - Harvard University, Boston MA USA
Partner with the University Research Computing Officer and University Research Data Officer to advance efforts to align support for researchers across the University. This position will work within a team of project managers and report to the Associate Director of University Research Computing and Data. The Project Manager will be responsible for resource planning, scoping, and launching of new Exploratory Services and Resources within the Research Computing and Data program (e.g., Harvard Data Commons, Generalist Repository Ecosystem, Academic Computing Cluster etc.). In addition, this position may occasionally provide back-up other projects within the Data Security and Compliance and/or Shared Infrastructure project management portfolios when necessary (i.e., project start-up, productivity bursts, etc.).
Lead Cybersecurity Engineer, Research Computing - Harvard University, Boston MA USA
The Lead Cybersecurity Engineer will lead the planning of and conduct advanced research computing engineering duties to implement new RC solutions to keep up with the pace of complex research problems and the ever-changing regulatory environment for research data. Develop enhancements of monitoring to maintain the integrity of RC systems. Lead cross-functional technical teams and projects alongside research programs. Lead multiple technical elements of this and other projects simultaneously.
Senior R&D Manager - Siemens, Shannon IE
We are expanding our team as we embark on a green field application bringing High Performance Computing(HPC) to the Cloud for the secure execution of chip design software, real challenges are you ready ? We’re looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to build and lead a product team(s) in partnership with Product Management. Together you will shape the strategy and direction of your team and influence the broader Cloud Orchestration vision and strategy for years to come.
Associate Director, Research Systems - Queen’s University, Kingston ON CA
Reporting to the Director, Grants and Research Operations, the Associate Director, Research Systems (‘the Associate Director’) is a key member of the Vice-Principal Research portfolio (‘Portfolio’) leadership team and is responsible for the planning, management and sustainment of a hub of digital research service systems aligning with the operational mandate, customer service objectives and strategic priorities of the Portfolio. The Associate Director brings a forward-thinking, strategic approach to process improvement and project management, and acts as a subject matter expert in optimizing effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity of research systems. This includes platforms supporting research operations, administration and compliance policy and process (e.g., Tools for Research at Queen’s), enabling research networking and promotion (e.g., Research Discovery Network), as well as other online tools catalyzing the impact of research at Queen’s.
Senior Technical Program Manager - Microsoft, Redmond WA or Cambridge MA USA
Terra (terra.bio) is a scalable, secure, and open-source platform for biomedical research, designed to help researchers and data scientists focus on their science as they access data, run analysis tools, and collaborate. Microsoft is collaborating with Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and Verily Life Sciences to expand on Terra’s open, modular, and interoperable research platform, with the addition of the Microsoft Azure cloud, data and AI technologies, global capabilities and health & life science customers and partners. We are looking for an experienced Senior Technical Program Manager with strong product thinking and technical depth. You will work across engineering teams and customers to help discover, define, and validate product capabilities and help bring them to life in our emerging bio-medical informatics platform.
Senior Applied Scientist, Quantum Solutions Lab - AWS, Zurich CH
The senior applied scientist will work in conjunction with the sales team, solutions architects and professional service counterparts. He/She will develop quantum and nature-inspired solutions for a wide variety of industries together with a team of experts. Major responsibilities include:
Senior Research Data Librarian - University of New South Wales, Sydney AU
Following the launch of our new DSpace 7 institutional repository, UNSW Library is embarking on an exciting programme of initiatives to encourage adoption of open data and open research at the University. The Scholarly Communications and Repositories (SCR) team provides a wide range of services to assist academic staff and postgraduate researchers to manage research resources, including dataset publishing and curation, research data management planning, open access and publication management. The Senior Data Librarian will provide subject matter expertise to researchers, Library colleagues and the University community. The role will work collaboratively across the Library and with the Division of Research & Enterprise to implement digital infrastructure and services, and develop training and engagement programmes.
Lead Data Engineer, Australian Centre for Quantitative Imaging - University of Western Australia, Crawley AU
The Australian Centre for Quantitative Imaging (ACQI) is a newly developed centre within the UWA Medical School, dedicated to the development of quantitative imaging and analytics for supporting imaging clinical trials, analytics methods, biomarker discovery, education and training in imaging analytics and the growth of associated innovation and commercialisation opportunities. Reporting to the Associate Professor, you will lead the development and management of ACQI’s core computing infrastructure. You will also develop strategies to ensure infrastructure supports key research capabilities of the University. In addition, you will work with the national AIS team to implement and deploy quality control (QC), pre-processing and analytics workflows in the XNAT environment.
System Administrator Lead, Center for Integrated Research Computing - University of Rochester, Rochester NY USA
The Center for Integrated Research Computing supports the University of Rochester’s research mission by providing technical computing services to the institution’s research community. These services include high performance computing, visualization, large, fast, reliable storage systems and hundreds of software packages used by researchers to analyze data. CIRC also provides assistance with using these tools via workshops, classes, tutorials and consulting services. This position is important due to the indirect and direct support provided to the researchers in achieving and maintaining a high level of satisfaction by the research community.
Senior Mathematical Optimization Scientist (EMTEC) - ExxonMobil, Houston TX USA
ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company is looking for senior mathematical optimization scientists with backgrounds in operations research, management sciences, applied mathematics or engineering. We are looking for dynamic, creative, and resourceful individuals to join our efforts in broad set of oil & gas areas including both geoscience, engineering, commercial and low carbon solution. Successful candidates will work to apply various operations research technologies to support critical business decisions across the entire value chain. The focus on value generation provides the opportunity to have significant impact leveraging ExxonMobil’s strong belief in creating commercial advantage through the use of technology. The company places high emphasis on fundamental scientific skills and the ability to combine technical skills with business understanding to improve profitability. Demonstrated ability to mentor other optimization scientists is an advantage
Privacy Lead - Hamilton Health Sciences, Hamilton ON CA
Reporting to the Chief Privacy Officer & Legal Counsel, the Privacy Lead will serve as the data and analytics SME in working with internal clients to develop a practical-based approach to the development and enhancement of our data and digital transformational activities, while ensuring ethical use of data and alignment with regulatory and legislative requirements. The Privacy Lead will also support the execution of day-to-day privacy activities, including: privacy assessments, privacy compliance reviews, agreement reviews, delivering training, and promoting privacy practices and standards across the hospital.
Data Analyst Manager - Columbia University, New York NY USA
A research team in Biomedical Informatics located in the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics is seeking a Data Analyst Manager to develop and maintain a software pipeline for the analyses of genomic sequencing data. The job would require the candidate’s active participation in the design and implementation of that pipeline as well as interaction with collaborators in applying the pipeline towards achieving the goals of specific sequencing projects. The person will work directly with senior members of the lab in meeting assigned objectives under the supervision of the Principal Investigator. The incumbent will also oversee the Data Analyst (DA) position within the Rabadan Lab, who will be coordinating research computational efforts, as well as be in charge of genomic data coordination for various working groups within the Center for Topology of Cancer Evolution and Heterogeneity and Program for Mathematical Genomics (PMG) group
Research Director in Computer Architecture, Architecture and Compilers Research Group - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona ES
The selected candidate will be working in the ARCO research group as a technical leader, participating in the definition of new projects, advising PhD students and collaborating in dissemination activities among other duties. We offer a leading-edge environment for research, with strong links with worldwide academia and industry. The group is recognized as one of the worldwide top research groups in the areas of computer architecture and compilers. It has numerous publications in the most prestigious international symposia and journals, and many collaborations with industry.
Data Engineer Team Lead - Fronteirs Journals, Remote ES or PT or DE or PO or UK
We are looking for a senior Data Engineer/Architect with experience leading teams, to join our business and manage a Data Team formed by Python SW engineers, Data Engineers, Data Architects and Cloud Architects. You will define, plan and coordinate internal technical projects related to our Data Products, the creation of a Cloud Data Warehouse, the integration of our systems and our CRM, and the creation of a solid data foundation to empower our data scientists and our machine learning team.
DevOps Manager and Enterprise Architect, Alabama Water Institute (AWI) - University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa AB USA
The Alabama Water Institute at the University of Alabama seeks applications for an Enterprise Architect/DevOps Manager to support a hydrologic model software development project. AWI is creating a replicable, hybrid HPC-cloud water science environment to support a collaborative experiment to analyze the National Water Model and improve US capacity for critical flood and drought prediction. The applicant will have a strong software development background and be familiar with DevOps, high performance computing, and migration to the cloud. As lead for the DevOps team, the applicant will have experience working with and managing distributed agile teams.
High Performance Computing Manager - Tier4 Group (Recruiter), Seattle WA USA
Our start up client in the Genome space is looking to bring on a High Performance Computing Manager to the team! Our client is a genomic health IT company that keeps pace with the constant advancements made in genomics and connects that research to patient DNA to help diagnose and treat patients with rare genetic diseases and cancer. If you are interested in this position, please apply! Our client is open to a contractor or a full-time applicant. Our client is a spin off to the University of Washington. They prefer someone that is local to Seattle but will consider remote candidates on the West Coast. Supports day-to-day operations of a 60 node HPC cluster connected to 7+ PBs of high-performance storage. You will be responsible for maintaining and growing an existing in-house HPC infrastructure (~90 Nodes, 3,800 cores, 32 GPUs, and 7.5Pb of multi-tiered storage), growing it over time
Project Manager, Advanced Research Computing - Simon Fraser University, Burnaby BC CA
The Project Manager oversees a variety of national initiatives supporting research including the procurement and implementation of four new Advanced Research Computing (ARC) systems at four institutions across Canada. The Project Manager leads project teams at the four institutions in the development of operational partnerships for computation and data storage. The Project Manager works closely with Compute Canada’s Executive staff and the various Project Leads at each of the institutions, and with partner organizations, to support and coordinate various ARC and cyberinfrastructure activities. The incumbent directs and coordinates cross-functional project teams and manages inter-project dependencies and communications. The Project Manager provides regular status reports to Compute Canada’s CTO and Project Leads and escalates issues as required.