What are the responsibilities and job description for the Research Scientist position at The University of Texas at Dallas?
The High Performance Computing (HPC) Research Scientist will be responsible for assisting customers using complex research computing resources for advanced research purposes. The position will provide consulting, technical support, and training to users of high-performance computing resources. Responsibilities include assisting customers with onboarding of HPC systems; porting, debugging, and optimizing code; troubleshooting and general assistance in using HPC systems; training faculty and students on the use of HPC resources and programming; and tracking the use of HPC resources and the resulting research outcomes and publications. The position reports to the Director of HPC Facilitation.
Minimum Education And Experience
Preferred Education and Experience
UT Dallas is an Equal Opportunity Employer with an employee-friendly and supportive work environment. Our comprehensive compensation and benefits package that is effective as of your hire date includes:
If you are looking for a rewarding career opportunity with great benefits? Look no further! Join our team!
Important Message
Minimum Education And Experience
- Master's degree in field directly related to research – Two (2) years of experience/expertise performing research relating to a specified field of study – Or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience totaling at least eight years.
Preferred Education and Experience
- PhD or Master's degree in computer science, engineering, science, mathematics, data science, or similar quantitative subject area.
- Current knowledge of HPC systems, best practices, and research customer support.
- Ability to troubleshoot customer code, porting code, and optimizing code for HPC environments.
- Excellent interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills are essential.
- Multitasking, ability to work with teams and with varied customer needs.
- Ability to gather data about the use of HPC systems, analyze the data, and prepare reports for leadership.
- Ability to manage support tickets and prioritize considering varied scope, scale, and technical requirements.
- Know multiple programming and scripting languages.
- Knowledge of parallel programming techniques including shared memory and message passing parallel programming.
- Experience with scientific computing code development and support.
- Knowledge of Linux usage, scripting, Git, development tools, and an HPC batch processing system.
- Experience in using HPC resources within a university or from national cyber infrastructure resources.
- Previous work with faculty in research projects, worked with and mentored students, written and presented academic/research papers.
- Experience attending conferences, representing one's institution, and gleaning trends and opportunities in the field and industry.
- Familiarity with secure research management practices (e.g., NIST and NSF frameworks).
- Assist customers with onboarding by sharing information about system capabilities, how to obtain accounts and access the systems (within UTD, across Texas, and national resources), running customer's own programs or packages software, using the batch system, and monitoring systems usage.
- Assist customers with porting and optimizing code including selection and usage of appropriate development tools to match application requirements with available system resources; porting code to run on HPC systems; and code optimization within the node (shared memory multiprocessing, OpenMP), across the nodes (MPI), for GPUs and similar accelerators (CUDA, HIP or oneAPI), and higher-level problem domain specific libraries (BLAS, PyTorch, etc.).
- Assist customers with guidance on appropriate computing tools for general mathematical, scientific, engineering, or computing tasks. Guide researchers in research management practices as described in NIST and NSF guidelines.
- Assist customers with troubleshooting and debugging including common issues, debugging code errors, and debugging performance bottlenecks (profiling, resource usage monitoring, bench-marking).
- Consult and train HPC users about system capabilities, using HPC resources, porting and optimizing code, using packaged software, and debugging routine and complex issues.
- Track system usage and prepare reports that include resource consumption, and what research problems are being solved using HPC resources; track publications like journal articles, conference papers, dissertations, theses, and technical presentations; prepare reports by gathering, analyzing, and reporting the data to HPCRE and university leadership.
- Ability to program in languages like C/C , FORTRAN, Python, R or similar scientific programming languages.
- Knowledge of parallel programming using shared memory and message passing techniques.
- Knowledge of OpenMP and MPI or similar programming directives and libraries.
- Knowledge of GPU programming with CUDA, HIP, oneAPI or OpenMP for GPUs.
- Knowledge of general-purpose scientific libraries like BLAS, various mathematical, statistical, and graphing libraries, TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar widely used libraries.
- Knowledge of HPC job execution environments like SLURM, PBS, or similar.
- Understanding of computer architecture elements that affect code performance including instruction level parallelism, multilevel caches, distributed shared memory, high-speed IO, DMA/RDMA, code profiling hardware support, GPU architectures, SIMD programming, and elements of GPU streaming processors.
- Comfortable in discussing scientific research topics with faculty and students.
- Comfortable in translating research computing requirements to suitable HPC resources.
- Preference may be given to internal candidates.
- On-call availability for quickly responding to high-priority requests and/or support for the operations team on testing software after emergency maintenance, both during regular and emergency off-hours.
- With a user-facing role, this position is expected to substantially work in person. However, hybrid and remote work is available for Texas residents with further discussion and agreement.
- Sitting for extended periods. Dexterity of hands and fingers to operate a computer keyboard, mouse, and power tools, and to handle other computer components.
- Occasional lifting and transporting of moderately heavy objects, such as computers, switches, and peripherals.
- Visa sponsorship is not available.
UT Dallas is an Equal Opportunity Employer with an employee-friendly and supportive work environment. Our comprehensive compensation and benefits package that is effective as of your hire date includes:
- Competitive Salary
- Tuition Benefits
- Internal Training
- BCBS PPO Medical insurance – 100% paid for full-time employees
- PPO and DHMO Dental Insurance Plan – PPO plans include ortho benefits
- Vision Insurance
- Long and short-term disability
- TRS Retirement Plan – defined benefit plan offering lifetime annuity upon retirement
- Voluntary Retirement Plan Options – additional savings opportunities with Tax-Sheltered Annuity Plans and Deferred Compensation Plans
- Dental/Vision/AD&D
- Paid time off
- Paid Holidays
- Paid Winter Break
- Fertility Benefits
- Remote Work Options – approved by department
If you are looking for a rewarding career opportunity with great benefits? Look no further! Join our team!
Important Message
- All employees serve as a representative of the University and are expected to display respect, civility, professional courtesy, consideration of others and discretion in all interactions with members of the UT Dallas community and the general public.
- The University of Texas at Dallas is committed to providing an educational, living, and working environment that is welcoming, respectful, and inclusive of all members of the university community. UT Dallas does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, disability, genetic information, or veteran status in its services, programs, activities, employment, and education, including in admission and enrollment. EOE, including disability/veterans. The University is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities. To request reasonable accommodation in the employment application and interview process, contact the ADA Coordinator. For inquiries regarding nondiscrimination policies, contact the Title IX Coordinator.
