Associate Director of Platform Engineering and AI Systems

University of Chicago • Chicago, IL

82d • $130,000 - $170,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Associate Director of Platform Engineering and AI Systems leads the design, operation, and continual improvement of large-scale cloud and on-premise data infrastructure supporting advanced AI, bioinformatics, and data commons and mesh research at the University of Chicago's Center for Translational Data Science. This role combines deep technical expertise, strategic architectural vision, and hands-on operational leadership to ensure reliable, secure, and innovative platform services. The ideal candidate will oversee engineering teams and project portfolios, drive technology alignment with scientific priorities, and collaborate with internal, external, and sponsor stakeholders to accelerate impactful data-driven discovery.

Requirements

• Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.
• Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in related field.
• Experience with personnel accounting and financial concepts, especially for sponsored awards from NIH and/or NSF.
• Experience with PB-scale hardware and software.
• Experience with production-level bioinformatics workflow needs.
• Expertise with system administration issues in a large and complex client server environment.
• Experience operating SaaS systems for cancer genomics researchers.
• Experience working in a research environment as government contractor or subcontractor.
• 3 years or more of supervisory experience.
• Experience with Agile and Waterfall project management approaches.
• Experience with privacy and security concerns and federal regulations related to human genomic data.
• Experience with FISMA Moderate systems requirements.
• Experience with securing and running open-source technology-based infrastructures and tools, especially those running virtual environments.
• Experience with AI infrastructure needs and tools for making AI research open source.
• Experience monitoring and enforcing strong network and system security policies and using information security scanning tools.
• Experience managing deployment of systems at scale using Linux automatic installers.
• Experience with data center operations, including business continuity planning and disaster recovery planning and testing.
• Experience with data commons, meshes, and/or fabrics with controlled and open access data.
• Communicate effectively with internal parties, project sponsors, external vendors, and divisional and university leadership.
• Coach and mentor junior and senior personnel regarding all aspects of their job, using influence where a direct supervisory relationship is absent.
• Knowledge of configuration and management of clusters at scale.
• Knowledge of backup technology and other monitoring and automated systems management technologies.
• Knowledge of integration and management issues in a heterogeneous computing environment.
• Outstanding deductive and investigative skills to identify and diagnose complex, non-intuitive technical problems.
• Ability to apply in-depth knowledge and experience of internal or external business issues to improve products or services.
• Ability to take a new perspective using existing solutions.
• Ability to learn new procedures, techniques, and approaches quickly.
• Integrity and credibility to work with sensitive data.
• In-depth understanding of IT architectural frameworks, development methodologies, tools, and techniques.
• Excellent supervisory and staff management skills.
• Strong and effective oral and written communication skills.
• Ability to facilitate technical discussions.
• Ability to relate business issues to technology, and vice versa required.
• Ability to accurately monitor project progress, to keep track of effort and funds expended and committed, and to anticipate at an early stage any need for changes in project direction, scope, objectives, funding, or timeline.
• In-depth knowledge of NIST SP 800-53, Rev. 5 and 800-171.

Responsibilities

• Lead Platform Engineering and Cloud Operations teams supporting multiple public & private cloud systems, including an on-prem system for AI research.
• Oversee day-to-day cloud operations and platform reliability across multiple production environments.
• Provide technical guidance, architectural direction, and mentorship to engineering staff.
• Conduct project planning and execution for infrastructure initiatives including hardware refreshes, storage expansions, and hybrid cloud deployments.
• Maintain 5-year hardware refresh plans for on-prem infrastructure supporting PB-scale storage and multiple bioinformatics pipelines.
• Represent the Center and its priorities to sponsors, serving as the primary liaison for platform and operations within project portfolio.
• Coordinate with hardware and SaaS vendors for procurement, negotiations, support contracts, and maintenance.
• Generate monthly and annual reports on engineering and operations performance.
• Prepare and oversee contract proposals related to platform and infrastructure services.
• Serve as key personnel on infrastructure contracts and agreements.
• Participate in security audits, annual tabletop exercises, and ensure team readiness for incident response.
• Lead 24/7 incident response processes and maintain systems for continuous support coverage, serving as lead systems contact for incident response across the Center.
• Ensure timely resolution of production incidents and platform issues.
• Oversee design, deployment, and monitoring of infrastructure supporting scientific workflows and high-throughput genomic data processing.
• Manages employees by establishing annual performance goals, allocating resources, assessing annual performance, and determining individual merit, incentive and/or promotional increases. Provides technical oversight and develops standards, guidelines, and processes for application systems.
• Creates plans to translate business requirements into well-designed applications while balancing user and business needs, technical competencies, industry developments, and time constraints.
• Advises decisions on project and infrastructure needs, including the evaluation of server technologies, languages, platforms, and frameworks. Develops timelines and project plans for the team.
• Formulates and defines specifications for complex installations, maintenance, and upgrades. Identifies and analyzes performance and capacity issues.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Benefits

• The University of Chicago offers a wide range of benefits programs and resources for eligible employees, including health, retirement, and paid time off. Information about the benefit offerings can be found in the Benefits Guidebook.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees