AI Research Support Engineer

Systems Admin/Programmer IV

UF Information Technology (UFIT) is seeking an intermediate- to expert-level Artificial Intelligence Research Support Engineer to join Research Computing, a unit within UFIT. Employment with UFIT provides an excellent opportunity to work with other dedicated employees focused on understanding and interpreting the technological needs of the University of Florida’s innovative and inspirational community.

UF has been operating HiPerGator, for close to a decade. It has grown in power over the years and is currently ranked #51 in the November 2023 Top 500 list. It is the fastest supercomputer owned and operated by a university in the USA. HiPerGator has become a critical service for UF because of the growth of the community of researchers, faculty, students, and collaborators that UFRC serves not only in size but also in the breadth of research domains. The workloads running on HiPerGator cover a wide range of research disciplines, from physical science and engineering to medicine and drug discovery, as well as arts and humanities. The demand for HiPerGator’s computing power to carry out Machine Learning research on large data sets has also dramatically increased with UF’s AI Initiative and the recent success of AI methods such as Deep Learning in scientific research.

This position is responsible for advanced system administration tasks including building and supporting workflows for advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems and user support on complex, high-performance, and data-intensive computing resources operated by UF Research Computing in support of advanced scientific, engineering, and scholarly research. UF is a comprehensive university offering degrees and carrying out research across a spectrum of disciplines, such as medicine, physical science, engineering, agriculture, business, law, arts and humanity, and many more. Researchers constantly try new ideas and need a flexible and powerful computational and data management platform. This position is part of a team with diverse skills to meet the diverse needs of researchers. We are seeking people with various backgrounds who are excited to join the effort to help advance the university’s research and education mission and are willing to learn new subjects and techniques as they carry out their jobs. The position will be required to design efficient workflows for researchers to use existing HiPerGator services and to design and develop new features or services with colleagues in RC according to a researcher’s needs. There will be ample opportunity for training on the job in the new skills required for the diverse tasks.

We are seeking people who are looking for an exciting career in supporting research by world-class faculty and their students and collaborators in their quest to solve some of the problems facing the world today.

Research teams come to UFIT Research Computing with rich data sets and a set of questions, often formulated in general terms, and with models and software that require high-performance computer hardware. The position is required to help them navigate the technical hardware and software capabilities of HiPerGator to realize their research and education objectives.

Some key responsibilities and characteristics of this position are:

• Understand and explore the problem researchers intend to solve and develop effective workflows to run on HiPerGator towards a solution; these problems can come from a very diverse set of domains and each position may need to team up with colleagues in Research Computing with matching expertise and experience
• Design new features to existing services and new services to support a researcher’s workflows and participate in the implementation in collaboration with colleagues in Research Computing
• Design, implement, test, and validate the proposed workflows with the researchers: this may involve scripting, programming, using the SLURM scheduler, and using software tools available on HiPerGator
• Explore, evaluate, and test software, operating systems, and applications on workstations in labs that are used for research and often interoperate with HiPerGator services
• Work with the training team, create training materials, and conduct training for the new features and services that are developed

About UF Information Technology

UF Information Technology is comprised of eight departments reporting to the Vice President and Chief Information Officer: Academic Technology; Applications, Development, and Integrations; Business Center; Customer Experience and Resource Planning; Data Platform and Analytics; Information Security Office; Infrastructure and Communication Technology; and Research Computing. With established governance advisory committees and a set of well-defined, transparent processes aiding decision-making, UFIT strives to provide exceptional IT services in support of UF’s mission. For more information about UFIT and its goals and governance, visit http://www.it.ufl.edu/vp-cio-office/strategic-plan/.

Learn more about UFIT at https://it.ufl.edu/ and @GoGatorsUFIT.

About the University of Florida

The University of Florida (UF) is the state’s oldest, largest, and most comprehensive land grant university with an enrollment of over 50,000 students. UF ranks 6th among public universities nationally (US News and World Report 2023) and 1st among public institutions in the Wall Street Journal 2023 survey. UF is in Gainesville, a city of approximately 150,000 residents in North-Central Florida, 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, 67 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and within a 2-hour drive to major cities like Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville. The beautiful climate and extensive nearby parks and recreational areas afford year-round outdoor activities, including hiking, biking, and nature photography. UF’s large college sports programs, museums, and performing arts center support a range of activities and cultural events for residents to enjoy. Alachua County schools are highly rated and offer a variety of programs, including magnet schools and an international baccalaureate program. Learn more about what Gainesville has to offer at Visit Gainesville.

Benefits

Full-time TEAMS employees will accrue vacation leave at a rate of 6.769 hours biweekly/22 days annually and sick leave at 4 hours biweekly/13 days annually. In addition, employees are eligible for 10n paid holidays each year.

Vacation-accruing TEAMS employees are eligible for four personal leave days/32 hours per year, assuming full-time status, and are intended to give the flexibility to enable units to close during the December holiday closing when possible, determined on a unit-by-unit basis.

In addition to paid time off, the University of Florida offers a very competitive benefits package.

Level III $70,000 – $90,000; Level IV $80,000 - $100,000; Commensurate based on education and experience.

Level III: Bachelor’s degree in an appropriate area and two years of relevant experience; or a high school diploma or equivalent and six years of experience. Appropriate college coursework or vocational/technical training may substitute at an equivalent rate for the required experience.

Level IV: Bachelor’s degree in an appropriate area and four years of relevant experience; or a high school diploma or equivalent and eight years of relevant experience. Appropriate college coursework may substitute at an equivalent rate for the required experience.

The ideal candidate will possess the following education, experience, and skills:

• Bachelor’s or Associate’s degree in any scholarly domain: science, technology, engineering, arts, or mathematics (STEAM)
• Experience: A variant of Linux, ideally RedHat Enterprise Linux or CentOS Linux; Building complex workflows such as common in gene sequencing and machine learning; Parallel programming for shared memory (threads, OpenMP) and distributed memory (MPI, CUDA); Programming experience in scripting languages such as bash, Perl, Python and in compiled languages FORTRAN and C/C++; Resource schedulers such as Kubernetes or Slurm; Contemporary workflow management systems such as Nextflow or Snakemake; Contemporary web application frameworks, deployment, and CI
• Skills: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, outstanding communicator; interpersonal skills; and the ability to work collegially and interact effectively with a diverse constituency; can explain highly technical subjects to people without that particular technical background; Excellent organizational skills and an ability to prioritize and complete simultaneous projects with minimal supervision; Accuracy, attention to detail and a customer service-oriented approach and mindset
• Abilities: Work collaboratively and build strategic relationships with both other IT staff on campus and with faculty and their collaborators. Think critically and creatively, have a high standard of integrity, and be motivated to incorporate best practices into the organizational structure
• Provide excellent service through professional and courteous interactions with internal and external stakeholders while meeting business needs
• Can thrive in a fast-paced, customer-focused, critical production, support, and development environment
• An appreciation for and support of diversity in the workplace in all its forms

The final candidate must be able to pass a Level 2 Background Check.

This position will be based in one of our Gainesville offices and may include a hybrid schedule of 3 days in the office (Wednesday required), and 2 days remote.

Applicants are required to submit the following with their application:

• Cover Letter
• Resume or CV
• Professional References (Minimum of 3)

The application must be submitted by 11:55 p.m. of the posting end date.