High-Performance Computing DevOps Engineer

As an HPC DevOps engineer, you have direct influence within education and research. For example, you optimise the use of advanced technology, such as the Dutch Supercomputer Snellius. You also lead the way in high-performance computing and technological innovation. And all in one position. Are you SURF's new HPC DevOps engineer?

Where you will work

SURF is the IT cooperative for Dutch educational and research institutions. Together with them, we work on digital services and complex innovation challenges to enhance the quality of education and research.

The team you will join

The High-Performance Computing & Visualization (HPCV) team is not just any team. Day in and day out, this team stands for team cohesion, collaboration and diversity. Whoever you are and whatever your cultural background, you are an instant part of the team. It is hard work every day, but together with your colleagues you put your shoulders to the wheel. You reach out to your colleagues when necessary and share your knowledge about technological innovation, whether it is need to know or nice to know.

The multicultural atmosphere is not limited to within the walls of the SURF office in Amsterdam. Besides joint lunch walks, there are also international dinners on the menu, where colleagues share dishes from their own cuisine. Have you already got the hang of it? Then we would love to add you to our team as an HPC DevOps engineer!

What you will do

Picture it for a moment: in this position, you will work with Snellius, the Dutch National Supercomputer that enables confidential computing for social science and economic research. You'll be right on top of Snellius' advanced computing infrastructure, with an impressive 240,000 cores, 640 GPUs and a staggering peak performance of around 30 Pflops/s. As our new HPC DevOps engineer, it will be up to you to manage and continuously improve Snellius' environment to the best of your ability.

Specifically, as part of the management team, you will be responsible for developing the system, keeping it operational and optimising system performance. You also play a crucial role in introducing innovative solutions; you go for and stand for the very best operation of Snellius.

What else you will be involved in:

• You develop and improve the ODISSEI Secure Supercomputer (OSSC). You do this in the Snellius environment. Your focus is on maintaining security when performance is constantly optimised for the needs of researchers.
• You develop and maintain auxiliary services, such as OpenLDAP, that support our HPC systems.
• You work on new technologies and deploy creative solutions for our Experimental Technical Platform (ETP) team.
• You evaluate new hardware systems with new workflows together with the Operations and Innovation departments. You are important when it comes to following up on those outcomes. You also collaborate a lot and constantly coordinate with consultants, DevOps engineers and other HPC DevOps engineers.

Your skills and experience

As our new HPC DevOps engineer, we bring in a colleague who thinks fast and knows what to do. With your in-depth knowledge and expertise of all kinds of computer systems, you shoot straight into handshake mode without flinching. You are analytically strong, look ahead and know what is coming next. Your oral and written communication skills - in both Dutch and English - and your experience with various (cluster) environments, scripting languages and technologies complete the picture.

Furthermore, on your CV you have:

• A bachelor's or university degree in IT technology;
• Demonstrable experience in managing Linux (cluster) environments, the scripting languages Bash and/or Python and security;
• Knowledge of technologies such as Slurm, IBM Spectrum Scale (GPFS), monitoring software, (Grafana, Prometheus), database software (MariaDB, Postgres), configuration management software (SaltStack, Ansible, CFEngine, Puppet) and version control software (subversion, git).

What we offer

At SURF, we are happy to have you there for us as an HPC DevOps engineer 32-40 hours a week. We are happy to offer you something in return.
Not only will you sign a one-year contract with the prospect of permanent employment. We also have the following for you:

• A salary range between 3935 - 6326 EUR EUR gross (based on a 40-hour workweek) (wage level 2025);
• 8.33% vacation allowance and a fixed year-end bonus of 8.33%;
• 36 vacation days per year (based on a 40-hour workweek);
• A good pension plan with PNO Media, where you contribute only 1/8 of the premium, and SURF contributes 7/8;
• The possibility to work hybrid. You will receive a home office allowance on your remote working days;
• A first-class NS-Business card;
• Two great locations in Amsterdam and Utrecht, both with excellent public transport facilities. Your workplace will be: Amsterdam. Our Amsterdam office is located at the Amsterdam Science Park, with good public transport facilities nearby.

Prior to starting this job, a VOG must be presented.

SURF takes pleasure in doing its recruitment itself; acquisition is therefore not appreciated.