HPC System Engineering Expert - ESA ESRIN

Gielle Informatica Srl, an IT consulting company with over 40 years of experience and a strong background in ICT recruitment and selection, is looking for an

HPC System Engineering Expert

Location: European Space Agency (ESA) – ESRIN, Frascati (Rome), Italy

Working arrangement: Hybrid – 2 days per week on-site

Language requirement: Fluent English, both written and spoken (mandatory)

Role Description

We are looking for an HPC System Engineering Expert to work at our Client’s premises, the European Space Agency site of Frascati (ESRIN), in Italy.

In this role, you will be responsible to support the engineering, administration, operation and evolution of a complex High Performance Computing environment.

Tasks and Activities

The successful candidate will have strong hands-on expertise in Linux-based HPC infrastructures, workload management, compute and accelerator technologies, storage, networking, monitoring, automation and system troubleshooting.

The role requires the ability to take technical ownership of complex infrastructure issues, ensure platform reliability and performance, and contribute to the capacity planning and technological evolution of the HPC environment.

The scope of work will include:

HPC System Engineering and Administration

• Administer and maintain Linux/Unix-based HPC clusters and associated infrastructure.
• Manage compute nodes, login/service nodes, GPU/accelerator resources and cluster services.
• Maintain controlled system configurations and associated technical and operational procedures.
• Install, configure, upgrade and maintain operating systems, drivers, firmware and HPC system components.
• Support configuration management and ensure consistency across the HPC environment.

Workload and Resource Management

• Configure and administer HPC workload-management and scheduling systems such as Slurm, PBS or equivalent technologies.
• Manage queues, partitions, reservations, resource allocations and accounting.
• Analyse jobs and resource consumption to identify bottlenecks or inefficient resource usage.
• Support implementation of resource-allocation and fair-use policies.

Monitoring, Troubleshooting and Incident Resolution

• Monitor the health and performance of compute, accelerator, storage and cluster services.
• Analyse alerts, logs and system behaviour to identify infrastructure anomalies and failures.
• Perform advanced troubleshooting and root-cause analysis of complex hardware, operating-system, network, storage and software issues.
• Implement authorised technical workarounds and corrective actions.
• Coordinate with hardware/software vendors and other technical teams where specialist intervention is required.
• Verify service restoration through appropriate technical tests.

Maintenance and Lifecycle Management

• Support the definition and development of the Agency’s vision and strategic roadmap for the future Space High-Performance Computing (HPC) environment, with particular focus on its interfaces and administrative management through the ESA Internal Cloud.
• Support the development and the maintenance of Power BI dashboards and Power Apps for the agency by implementing data pre-processing and data transformation with the adequate tools available in the agency. This includes SQL scripting and configuration of ETL tools on premises and in the cloud (e.g. Microsoft Azure).
• Plan and execute patches, system upgrades and configuration changes, perform impact analysis, testing, implementation and rollback preparation for infrastructure changes.
• Track hardware and software lifecycle, contribute to infrastructure refresh and HPC platform evolution activities.
• Identify technical risks and propose appropriate mitigation or evolution options.

Performance and Capacity Engineering

• Monitor and analyse CPU, GPU, memory, storage and workload utilisation.
• Identify system bottlenecks and opportunities for performance improvement.
• Support benchmarking, profiling and performance-tuning activities.
• Analyse utilisation, congestion and storage-growth trends.
• Contribute technical input to capacity planning and future infrastructure requirements.
• Prepare evidence-based recommendations for infrastructure optimisation and evolution.

Skills and Experience

The following skills and experience are mandatory:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• At least 5 years of relevant professional experience, including at least 3 years of hands-on HPC engineering/administration experience.
• Strong technical background with experience in HPC environments.
• Proficiency in Linux/Unix operating systems.
• Experience with HPC job scheduling and resource accounting.
• Experience with parallel computing frameworks (e.g., MPI, OpenMP).
• Proficiency in troubleshooting, scripting and automation, storage and data-management practices, secure operational administration.
• Experience in performance tuning and optimization of HPC applications.
• Familiarity with containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Singularity).
• Experience with HPC storage systems and data management.
• Knowledge of scientific computing and applications commonly used in HPC environments.
• Excellent problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.
• Strong analytical skills and attention to detail.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple tasks and priorities.
• Enthusiasm for continuous learning and professional development.

Fluent in English, both written and spoken (mandatory).

Additional Information

This position is also open to protected categories under Italian Law 68/99 (“Rules for the right to work of disabled people”).

Engagement: Full-time, freelance contract (Italian VAT number / Partita IVA required).

Daily rate: To be agreed based on the candidate's experience and technical skills.

In accordance with Italian Legislative Decree 196/03 and Article 13 of the GDPR (EU Regulation 2016/679), applicants are invited to review the privacy notice regarding the processing of personal data.

This job opportunity is open to candidates of all genders (Italian Laws 903/77 and 125/91), as well as individuals of all ages and nationalities, in accordance with Italian Legislative Decrees 215/03 and 216/03.

Interested candidates are invited to submit their updated CV, quoting the reference: ANN436885