Director of Cloud, HPC, and Web Services

University Overview

The University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. This historic, Ivy League school consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Penn has 12 highly-regarded schools that provide opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, all influenced by Penn’s distinctive interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and learning. As an employer Penn has been ranked nationally on many occasions with the most recent award from Forbes who named Penn one of America’s Best Large Employers in 2023.

Penn offers a unique working environment within the city of Philadelphia. The University is situated on a beautiful urban campus, with easy access to a range of educational, cultural, and recreational activities. With its historical significance and landmarks, lively cultural offerings, and wide variety of atmospheres, Philadelphia is the perfect place to call home for work and play.

Summary

The Director of Cloud, HPC, and Web Services at Penn Arts and Sciences has a strong technical background and demonstrated experience leading IT teams in managing, innovating, and implementing technical services and solutions, preferably in a higher education environment. This role provides strategic direction and functional leadership for three critical infrastructure services for Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences: cloud Linux services (primarily AWS) supporting research, teaching, and administrative applications; on-premises Linux high performance computing (HPC) supporting cutting-edge research; and cloud-based Web Services supporting over 100 School websites. The position is hybrid eligible, with 2-3 days per week required on campus or in our data center.

Job Description

The University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) forms the foundation of the scholarly excellence that has established Penn as one of the world's leading research universities. We teach students across all 12 Penn schools, and our academic departments span the reach from anthropology and biology to sociology and South Asian studies.

Responsibilities:

The Linux Infrastructure Services group (LIS) is composed of a Cloud team, an HPC team, and a Web team which provide services to the School of Arts and Sciences, led by 2 Systems Architects and a Sr. Web IT Project Leader.

The Cloud team manages services that include standalone and proxy web services, custom application servers, and database servers, built in AWS or in Penn-based cloud services. This team also provides Linux desktop services in collaboration with the first-tier SAS Computing support team.

The HPC team manages research computing clusters, including the GPC2, SAS’s central cluster, which provides access to HPC methods for all researchers across the School and in addition incorporates grant-funded nodes for particular PI’s and research groups using the “condo model” of HPC architecture and support. The HPC team additionally supports several other free-standing clusters for a total of over 150 compute nodes providing critical research support in Physics, Earth and Environmental Science, Psychology, and many other disciplines.

The Web team includes a Senior IT Project leader and two web developers who manage creation, migration, and maintenance of SAS departmental, center, and program websites, project management for externally-developed websites, and consult and provide training for other faculty project websites on our self-service web platform. The web team works collaboratively with SAS Advancement to ensure that SAS’ web presence serves all internal and external constituents.

The Director of Cloud, HPC and Web Infrastructure manages our on-campus data centers and our relationship with data-center providers ISC (internal to Penn) and TierPoint. They negotiate purchase of clusters routinely exceeding $400,000 per cluster. They act as SAS lead in relationships with hardware, software, and cloud vendors including Dell, Silicon Mechanics, AWS, Pantheon, and others. They work to ensure that all web projects, internal and external, run on-time and on-budget and deliver high impact websites. They manage a multi-million-dollar budget associated with these services.

The Director of Cloud, HPC, and Web infrastructure works directly with senior faculty, chairs, and directors in the School of Arts and Sciences in a collaborative manner to understand research and other needs in the school. They have experience in developing technology solutions to meet customer needs and improve services, and an excellent track record in maintaining and modernizing systems under their direction.

The person in this role serves on the SAS Computing senior staff team and builds collaborative relationships throughout the Computing organization and the School of Arts and Sciences to advance its mission and strategic plan.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree and 5-7 years of experience working in an IT organization, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience working in a higher education IT environment
• A strong technical background with successful experience managing critical infrastructure and implementing new systems or services in response to changing needs and technology. Ability to lead evaluation and assessment of new technology and contribute to strategic decisions about future services.
• Demonstrated experience both leading technical teams and collaborating with other teams in a large, decentralized organization.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, complex, and demanding environment and manage competing priorities.
• Ability to build strong, positive, and collaborative relationships with many constituents, including technical colleagues, stakeholders, faculty, and vendors.
• Experience working with cloud services, especially AWS; knowledge of Pantheon a plus
• Knowledge of Information Security best practices in Linux systems administration and AWS
• Ability to work occasional weekend and/or evening hours based on business needs

Preferred:

• Experience in Linux systems administration, especially application and web servers and/or HPC systems.

Equal Opportunity Statement

The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity employer. Candidates are considered for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin (including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics), citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any class protected under applicable federal, state or local law.

Special Requirements

Background checks may be required after a conditional job offer is made. Consideration of the background check will be tailored to the requirements of the job.

University Benefits

To learn more about Benefits and Pay at Penn, please visit: https://www.hr.upenn.edu/PennHR/benefits-pay