Cloud Computing Developer

University of Chicago•Chicago, IL

3d•$95,000 - $110,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Nimbus team (nimbusproject.org) is an academic leader in cloud computing research, development, and operations. We work closely with scientific communities to provide innovative solutions adapting cloud computing to the needs of science. Among others, we operate Chameleon (www.chameleoncloud.org), an experimental platform for Computer Science systems research where new solutions in cloud computing, machine learning, software defined networking (SDN), and Internet of Things (IoT) are proposed every day by an international research community. The Nimbus team provides a friendly, challenge-oriented environment. The successful candidate will work on the intersection of development, research, and operations, discovering new requirements through working with scientific users, designing and building solutions that change the way science is done, deploying and operating them, and then supporting and interacting with their users to build communities around them.

Requirements

Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.
Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 2-5 years of work experience in a related job discipline.
Knowledge of Unix/Linux.
Familiarity with version control systems such as Git.
Experience with virtualization technologies (e.g., Xen, KVM) and/or containers (Docker).
Experience with system administration technologies (e.g., Ceph, MariaDB) and DevOps and CICD tools (e.g., Jenkins, Ansible) strongly preferred.
Familiarity with front-end frameworks (e.g., React, Vue) and web portal development, including experience with Jupyter notebook environments and interactive scientific interfaces.
Experience with LLMs, prompt engineering, RAG pipelines, or AI agent frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex).
Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Analytical and problem-solving skills.
Ability to prioritize and manage workload to meet critical project milestones and deadlines.
Ability to work in a collaborative team environment.
Ability to work on a flexible schedule, which will include occasional late night and/or weekend hours.
Ability to think independently and creatively to develop exceptional technical solutions.
Ability to identify similar or complementary commercial or academic solutions and read scientific literature to fill in knowledge gaps as needed.
Interest in research and working on challenges that don't have obvious solutions.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor's degree in computer science or another relevant computer-related field.
System experience with IaaS cloud systems, such as OpenStack or Amazon Web Services, and relevant technologies, whether through work, coursework, or projects.
Programming experience with Python strongly.
Demonstrated contributions to open source software.
Experience with distributed systems, performance analysis, and resource and/or data management systems.
Experience with remote working and associated practices.

Responsibilities

Work with emergent technologies and user requirements in AI and cloud computing to build and evaluate innovative solutions changing the way we do science.
Help develop an AI-based conversational assistant that helps computer science testbed users configure scientific computing environments in everyday language: build planning and provisioning agents with built-in checks on resource limits, timing, and hardware compatibility; integrate large language models (LLM) running on open academic hardware through standard tool interfaces; create validation benchmark suites and retrieval pipelines that organize documentation, logs, and help desk tickets into a searchable knowledge base.
Build and operate research infrastructure for projects such as Chameleon (www.chameleoncloud.org): design and build new solutions based on state-of-the-art technologies such as AI agent frameworks, LLM-integrated tooling, or hardware accelerators; extend open source systems and tools such as OpenStack; develop new features; manage system upgrades and maintenance; and implement security controls.
Work directly with users to identify new requirements, solve problems, and troubleshoot issues, including participating in user studies and iterative evaluation of AI-assisted tools.
Collaborate with science researchers nationwide as part of a large supercomputing center and an outstanding academic institution.
Share experiences with the wider community by contributing to papers as part of a research team that regularly publishes in academic venues.
Investigates, analyzes and resolves day-to-day technical problems using standard procedures.
Work with stakeholders to gather and analyze requirements for developmental programs. Receives a moderate level of guidance to design applications to meet University and business requirements.
Performs code testing on components and works to ensure that appropriate implementation standards are met. Evaluates design alternatives for development cost and solutions using various methods.
Performs other related work as needed.