AI Supercomputing Infrastructure Engineer (x3 FTE) in Bristol

The Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS) runs the Isambard-AI National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource, recently announced AI Data facility and the Isambard3 Tier-2 Supercomputer. Isambard-AI is the most powerful supercomputer in the UK and amongst the most powerful in Europe. The AI Supercomputing team owns the entire process of developing and operating the centre’s compute and software infrastructure, which includes:

• The sourcing of hardware and system design.
• The deployment of huge software‑defined infrastructure using tools such as Kubernetes and Terraform/OpenTofu.
• Building and operating platforms to enable researchers to conduct leading‑edge research using the systems.
• Optimising and refining software to ensure environmental and economic efficient use.

As one of the largest Open AI Research Resources internationally, we are committed to catalysing an AI transformation in the research and development community. In this role, you will work as part of the AI Supercomputing Team to build and operate primarily the infrastructure and compute platforms that researchers use for their work. You do not need to be an AI or computational research domain expert to deliver world‑class infrastructure, but you do need to quickly obtain a deep technical understanding of new domains. You should enjoy being self‑directed and identifying the most important problems to solve as the team matures with standardized tools and processes around stability, robust service delivery and scaling. This role supports hybrid working arrangements to provide flexibility.

What will you be doing? As a member of the AI Supercomputing Team, you will:

• Design and operate large, highly available supercomputing services managed as software‑defined infrastructures, and integrated as complete computational experiments.
• Experience designing and operating massive‑scale GPU and combined CPU/GPU workloads across these services.
• Design and debug platforms, and work closely with researchers as you co‑design solutions that will enable the development and operation of new algorithms and software to solve leading‑edge research problems.

You should apply if you:

• Want to help build, maintain and secure some of the largest, modern software‑defined supercomputing systems.
• Would enjoy working with world class domain and AI researchers as your primary workload.
• Have built small to large clusters or dabbled in building your own physical or software‑defined systems, and have motivation to scale up to something massive and nationally impactful.
• Love building large distributed, highly available systems, and want to see them used for truly open national‑scale research in a cybersecurity compliant manner.

For our AI Supercomputing Infrastructure Engineer role focusing on storage and networking, you’ll need:

• Domain expertise in 1 or more areas from NetOps and DevOps.
• Degree (or equivalent practical experience) in computer science, computational or ML/AI research or in a natural science with a high degree of competence in computer science or computational research.
• Good organisational skills to manage not just your own workload but also that of less experienced members of the team.

Contract type: Open ended with fixed funding until August 2030. Work pattern: Monday - Friday, 35 hours per week. Grade: K School/Unit: Bristol Centre for Supercomputing (BriCS)

Our strategy and mission: We recently launched our strategy to 2030 tying together our mission, vision and values. We want to attract, develop, and retain individuals with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives – particularly people of colour, LGBT+ and disabled people – because diversity of people and ideas remains integral to our excellence as a global civic institution.