HPC Systems Administration Specialist

Argonne National Laboratory•Lemont, IL

12d•$69,750 - $134,626

About The Position

Argonne is a multidisciplinary science and engineering research facility, where world-class researchers work alongside experts from industry, academia, and other government laboratories to address vital national challenges in technology and national security. As a member of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) High Performance Computing (HPC) team, you will directly work with first-class supercomputers and emergent technologies alongside scientific staff and research colleagues within the division. In this role, you will be able to significantly contribute to the design and development of new HPC systems, tools, and software stacks. In this role you can expect to: Assist with the design, development, and advancement of the HPC environment of the ALCF and focus on software integration with the larger software and operational ecosystem at the facility site. Package & Environment Management: Maintain, configure, and optimize Spack environments across ALCF systems to support a diverse and evolving portfolio of scientific applications. Compilation & Integration: Build, compile, and validate complex scientific software using modern build systems (e.g., CMake, GNU Make) tailored to heterogeneous exascale architectures (CPUs, GPUs, and accelerators). Performance Tuning & Collaboration: Work hand-in-hand with application-owners and domain experts after initial compilation to profile, debug, and performance-tune codes for maximum hardware efficiency. Upstream Engagement & Issue Reporting: Identify software defects or build failures, and effectively report and track issues back to external software developers and open-source communities. Documentation & Support: Document installation procedures, custom build flags, and optimization strategies, providing expert-level support to open-science researchers relying on your software stack.

Requirements

Demonstrated experience with Spack, CMake, Make, and managing software dependencies in Linux-based high-performance computing environments.
Strong proficiency in compiling large-scale scientific applications from source, utilizing various compilers (GNU, LLVM/Clang, Intel, etc.) and MPI libraries.
Familiarity with profiling and tuning tools to optimize applications beyond default installations.
Excellent interpersonal skills with a proven track record of working closely with domain scientists, researchers, and external developers to troubleshoot and refine software.
Ability to model Argonne's core values of impact, safety, respect, integrity and teamwork.
US Citizenship: To perform the essential functions of this position successful applicants must provide proof of U.S. citizenship, which is required to comply with federal regulations and contract.

Responsibilities

Assist with the design, development, and advancement of the HPC environment of the ALCF and focus on software integration with the larger software and operational ecosystem at the facility site.
Maintain, configure, and optimize Spack environments across ALCF systems to support a diverse and evolving portfolio of scientific applications.
Build, compile, and validate complex scientific software using modern build systems (e.g., CMake, GNU Make) tailored to heterogeneous exascale architectures (CPUs, GPUs, and accelerators).
Work hand-in-hand with application-owners and domain experts after initial compilation to profile, debug, and performance-tune codes for maximum hardware efficiency.
Identify software defects or build failures, and effectively report and track issues back to external software developers and open-source communities.
Document installation procedures, custom build flags, and optimization strategies, providing expert-level support to open-science researchers relying on your software stack.