Job Overview
Internal Redeployment Only - Engineer - Advanced Research Computing at Cardiff (ARCCA) You will work as part of a professional service delivery team dedicated to the provision of an efficient, effective and quality driven Information Technology service to staff and students within the Corporate, Administrative, Academic Research and Learning and Teaching functions of the University. You will provide a highly professional, friendly and customer focused face to the services offered by Information Services. Reporting to the senior engineer, you will provide operational support to the academic research community by supporting the delivery of ARCCA research computing support services at Cardiff. You will be responsible for supporting the administration of our research data services and assisting with the management of our high performance services on a day-to‑day basis. You will ensure a consistently high quality of service focused on enabling the computational research objectives of the academic research community. The position will require that part of your first year is focused on user support in a service desk supporting role, giving you an understanding of the different services that are delivered by ARCCA. You will employ excellent communication skills within the team, be eager to develop your skillset, and have the enthusiasm and technical knowledge required to deliver world class research computing services in a demanding, customer‑focused, academic environment. You will take responsibility for: The development of technology and infrastructure designs and specifications, including the documentation of architectures, topologies and configuration items. The specification and development of user/system interfaces, including validation and error correction procedures, processing rules, access, security and audit controls. You will assess associated risks, and specify recovery routines and contingency procedures. You will also assist with the translation of logical designs into physical designs. The provision of infrastructure maintenance and support services, both to users of the systems and to service delivery functions. You will pro‑actively monitor system performance, investigating and resolving faults and problems in a timely fashion. You will provide information, advice or training to users on functionality, correct operation and system constraints. The role may also involve the line‑management and leadership of staff supporting technical and functional solutions and/or services in the role-holder's technical domain.
Key Responsibilities
* Contribute to a centre of expertise within the organisation, taking responsibility for the development and maintenance of complex technical systems, covering all aspects of the systems lifecycle including investigation, analysis, specification, design, building, testing, operation, maintenance, upgrade, migration and obsolescence.
* Support the commissioning, operation and development of research data storage and management services, suggesting changes and enhancements as required.
* Take responsibility for aspects of the specification and design of technology utilised within the organisation, including recommendations for improving technology operations and cost‑effectiveness.
* Produce and maintain technology design policies, philosophies and criteria covering connectivity, capacity, interfacing, security, resilience, recovery, access and remote access using industry standards, methods and tools.
* Suggest design enhancements, capacity changes, contingency and system recovery arrangements as required, enabling design targets to be met and ensuring that the technology provided meets service level targets within the organisation's planned budget.
* Review technology costs against planned budgets, taking into account public tariffs and new technology developments; liaise with technology suppliers of equipment, software and services, evaluating proposals and approving changes to technology design where appropriate.
* Contribute to technical requirements, tender and proposal documents and participate in reviews and evaluations of responses for the selection of appropriate suppliers, services and contracts.
* Work with colleagues to monitor, optimise and report on the operational performance and stability of technology systems using commercial and open source tools; and identify where further development may be needed.
* Take responsibility for resolving problems and issues independently, using judgement and creativity to suggest the most appropriate course of action, and ensuring that the impact of complex and conceptual issues and solutions are understood by all parties.
* Contribute to the development of standards to allow staff within the role's technical domain to carry out all tasks and procedures efficiently and effectively to meet agreed levels of service or specific requirements of Service or Operational Level Agreements. Gather and record service level information and produce statistics for use in measuring key performance indicators (KPIs), and ensure that required targets are met.
* Work within matrix‑teams of staff across Information Services to deliver enhanced technology solutions to the University, providing advice and guidance to analysts, designers, and less experienced colleagues where necessary.
* Consult with and advise Project Managers to help them plan, prioritise and set project milestones to ensure that resources are appropriately deployed in order to meet deadlines.
* Lead or participate in projects as appropriate, managing the operation of project teams, planning and organising work and monitoring progress.
* Establish relationships with key contacts to ensure role objectives are met, developing appropriate communication links with internal and external stakeholders as required.
* You will have or be prepared to develop an appropriate knowledge/skill level in the current technologies in use and to develop an appropriate knowledge/skill level in any new technologies that are introduced.
* Carry out some duties associated with a more senior role for developmental purposes or for a more junior role for operational reasons.
* To ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements in respect of equality and diversity, data protection, copyright and licensing, security, financial and other University policies, procedures and codes as appropriate.
* To take reasonable care for the health and safety of yourself and of other persons who may be affected by your acts or omissions at work in accordance with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, EC directives and the University's Safety, Health and Environment Policies and procedures and to cooperate with the University on any legal duties placed on it as the employer.
* You may also be asked to perform other duties occasionally which are not included above, but which will be consistent with the role.
* Current technologies: Primarily Linux-based locally hosted services with a modest cloud footprint. Large scale (multi‑petabyte) data storage infrastructure which may include 3rd party filesystems, management tools and interfaces. High performance computing clusters. Currently slurm‑based with CPUs, GPUs Lustre and InfiniBand technologies. Research software application support. Includes HPC & AI/DL specific libraries and development toolkits.
* As an employee of Cardiff University the post holder will: Ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements in respect of equality and diversity, data protection, copyright and licensing, security, financial and other University policies, procedures and codes as appropriate. Take reasonable care for the health and safety of yourself and of other persons who may be affected by your acts or omissions at work in accordance with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, EC directives and the University's Safety, Health and Environment Policies and procedures and to cooperate with the University on any legal duties placed on it as the employer.
* Important note: It is the University's policy to use the person specification as a key tool for short‑listing. Candidates should evidence that they meet ALL of the essential criteria as well as, where relevant, the desirable. As part of the application process you will be asked to provide this evidence via a supporting statement. Please ensure that the evidence you are providing corresponds with the numbered criteria outlined below. Your application will be considered based on the information you provide under each element. When attaching the supporting statement to your application profile, please ensure that you name it with the vacancy reference number, e.g. Supporting Statement for 20787BR.
* 1. Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal. 2. Good organisational skills with the ability to work flexibly to prioritise successfully under pressure. 3. Demonstrable knowledge and experience in problem, error and knowledge management analysis, resolution and delivery techniques 4. Able to document complex technical solutions in a logical and clear framework that can be readily understood by others. 5. Excellent and proven relationship management skills with experience of managing the requirements of stakeholders 6. Demonstrable experience of utilising toolsets for monitoring, auditing and reviewing service support performance. 7. Proven ability to shape developments through active participation within teams and groups. 8. A good knowledge of Linux-based systems particularly in large scale data storage and compute-intensive environments. 9. Competence in operating and maintaining large scale data storage infrastructure such as disk arrays, tape libraries and related technologies. 10. Competence in data management processes including the capacity management of "live" data, backing up and archiving data, cyber security, and resiliency.
* 1. Experience working in a Higher Education or Research environment, and awareness of the FAIR principles and the role of meta-data for research data management. 2. Experience of some of the following technologies: tape storage, object storage, parallel file systems, cloud-based storage services, configuration management (e.g. Ansible or similar), version control (e.g. git or similar), scripting and/or Python. 3. A working knowledge of High Performance Computing, and/or AI and Deep Learning. 4. A degree or equivalent experience / professional qualifications 5. An understanding of ITIL service management, or similar. 6. Welsh language skills
* The position is full‑time and open ended. Salary: £41,064 – £46,049 per annum (Grade 6) Appointments to roles at Cardiff University are usually made at bottom of scale unless in exceptional circumstances.
Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds who have the ambition to create a University which seeks to fulfil our social, cultural and economic obligation to Cardiff, Wales, and the world. In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.
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