Research Platforms Engineer in Sheffield

The University of Sheffield is a remarkable place to work. Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Their diverse backgrounds, abilities and beliefs make Sheffield a world‑class university.

We offer a fantastic range of benefits including a highly competitive annual leave entitlement (with the ability to purchase more), a generous pensions scheme, flexible working opportunities, a commitment to your development and wellbeing, a wide range of retail discounts, and much more.

This role is part of the Research Platforms team in IT Services of the University and is focused on providing the platforms, tools, support and services that enable the University’s world leading research. The team manages several research compute platforms including our High Performance Compute (HPC) clusters to enable research into AI and machine learning, science, health and biosciences and engineering. Our newest cluster has over 11,000 CPU cores, >2PB of high‑performance storage and >100 high‑end Nvidia GPUs. We also support and manage the cloud (AWS) platforms that provide a secure environment for research on health and social care data to improve the health outcomes for the region, the UK and across the world.

Main duties and responsibilities

• Work with the team in delivering and running research IT platforms, which can meet the diverse needs and requirements of research groups at the University of Sheffield.
• HPC compute platforms capable of running the wide spectrum of research applications.
• High performance and scalable storage systems for I/O intensive compute tasks.
• Developing platforms capable of providing a secure environment for storing and processing sensitive research data.
• Supporting the use of cloud‑based platforms and technologies by researchers.
• Management and configuration of scheduling software and implementation of policies to allocate resources between users, providing the capability for research groups to purchase dedicated access to resources.
• Carry out routine maintenance tasks, and identify ways to improve and automate those tasks, across both on‑prem and cloud based platforms.
• Monitor performance, availability and security of the research platforms, providing regular reports.
• Work with other members of the ITS team to provide technical guidance and ensure that we deliver the appropriate platforms to meet the requirements of UoS researchers.
• Assist research groups in migrating their activities from legacy computer clusters on campus onto an appropriate solution (using local/regional/national or cloud solutions as appropriate).
• Continue to develop innovative solutions to provide easy access to the facility, which lowers the barrier for uptake for users with little experience with high‑performance computing.
• Work with vendors and service providers in order to procure and maintain infrastructure and services, which meet research computing requirements of the University.
• Carry out other duties, commensurate with the grade and remit of the post.

Person

Our diverse community of staff and students recognises the unique abilities, backgrounds, and beliefs of all. We foster a culture where everyone feels they belong and is respected. Even if your past experience doesn't match perfectly with this role's criteria, your contribution is valuable, and we encourage you to apply. Please ensure that you reference the application criteria in the application statement when you apply.

Criteria

• Understanding and some experience of HPC and cloud based research computing platforms including job schedulers (e.g. Slurm), virtualisation (e.g. VMWare, AWS EC2), and containerisation (e.g. k8s, Docker Swarm, Podman).
• Knowledge of multiuser systems, user account management, authentication and permissions.
• Ability to work to existing admin processes and develop robust automations with future resilience, replicability and management in mind. Knowledge of Infrastructure‑as‑code technologies such as Puppet and CloudFormation is a distinct advantage.
• Effective communication skills, both written and verbal, report writing skills, and ability to write clear and accurate technical documentation.
• Understanding of monitoring and managing physical and virtual computing platforms and infrastructure.
• Understanding of how to use cloud infrastructure and networking to ensure system and data security.
• Ability to assess and organise resources, and plan and progress work activities.
• An inquisitive mind and a desire to explore new technologies/techniques and engage with other research computing professionals.

We are a Disability Confident Employer. If you have a disability and meet the essential criteria for this job you will be invited to take part in the next stage of the selection process. Possession of a criminal record is not an automatic bar to employment at the University of Sheffield. We recognise the value of steady employment in the rehabilitation process and examine each case in its own right.