Head of Research Computing Platforms

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Salary for this Role:

From £87,400 with benefits, subject to skills and experience.

Job Title: Head of Research Computing Platforms

Reports to: James Clements

Closing Date: 08/Dec/2024 23.59 GMT

Job Description:

Head of Research Computing Platforms

Reports to: Chief Information Officer

This is a full-time, permanent position on Crick Terms and Conditions of Employment.

Summary

The Head of Research Computing Platforms will be part of the Information Technology Office (ITO) team and report directly to the Crick CIO. They will work closely with Crick scientists at all levels of the Institute to collaboratively plan and manage platforms that support the current and future needs of the Crick scientific community.

The post holder will be responsible for the collaborative delivery of the platforms and services to science through directly managed teams and in liaison with the wider ITO organisation, working very closely with teams supporting Research Data Management and Research Software Engineering & AI to deliver a unified Scientific Computing function to the organisation.

It is also expected that you will take an active role in working with the Crick partners and other relevant external contacts, in order to explore opportunities for collaborative development and/or sharing of resources.

Key Responsibilities

The Crick has recently installed the second wave of its scientific computing infrastructure, which currently provides 25PB of high-performance storage (with offsite backup and long-term archive) and over 12,000 cores of general-purpose compute, and multiple GPU clusters (H100, A100, L40) to support the varied needs of the organisation.

The Head of Scientific Computing is accountable for the planning and delivery of the on-going development and growth of the scientific IT infrastructure, ensuring that the Institute develops a sustainable model of investment that takes into account both core and response mode funding; forecasting of future needs; effective data lifecycle management and opportunities to collaborate with external partners. They are additionally accountable for HPC applications, including training and support, delivered in collaboration with other teams across the organisation.

Specific objectives include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Understand the scientific and research requirements of the Crick’s scientific programmes to advise and work in partnership with researchers and the ITO team to deliver scientific computing platforms appropriately to meet their scientific program needs. This will include understanding the general scientific analysis, work-flows, data acquisition, data management and data processing needs of the Institute.
• Work with the scientific community, formally, by continuing to develop the existing governance structures, and informally, to provide process for allocation of research computing platform resources (storage and compute), so that existing resources are effectively distributed and a forecast of future requirements is developed.
• Continued development of the strategy for sustainable growth of the Crick’s scientific computing platforms. Develop and articulate a plan for the growth of storage and compute capabilities for the 5 years, which, in addition to the research forecasts, takes into account external comparators and trends; the right mix of internal/external provision and the Crick’s funding streams.
• Develop the Crick’s strategy for world class data lifecycle management technology solutions and best practices. Work with colleagues across ITO to collaboratively deliver the technology components of the strategy and with researchers to deliver a successful adoption of the underpinning practices that are necessary to its successful implementation.
• Take the lead in developing a strategy for business continuity and disaster recovery of the scientific data and systems, ensuring that it reflects the needs of researchers. Develop evaluated options for presentation to researchers and Crick senior management.
• Establish an external advisory panel, to validate the Crick’s strategies in points 3, 4 and 5, above, and to provide feedback and review of the quality of its implementation.
• Liaise with external groups to develop and/or leverage shared infrastructure for the benefit of Crick researchers and wider collaborations.
• Work with researchers to explore the use and articulate the value of new technology to store, analyse and present data.
• Provide support to researchers in their use and development of programmes and algorithms to analyse data, by provision of expertise to support Scientific Computing.
• As a commissioner of systems, develop strong relationships with the Infrastructure and Helpdesk team in order to jointly deliver solutions for the Institute.
• Recruit, maintain and motivate team members, to continue to develop a culture of professional excellence across your teams.
• Use the Crick’s project and PMO approaches to support the effective and transparent delivery of projects.
• Manage the Scientific Computing revenue and capital budgets and support the CIO in management of the overall ITO budget.
• Provide reporting on the operational performance of Research Computing Platform services to the CIO, the IT Governance Committee and the Scientific Computing Steering Group, using the same tools as the rest of the department.

Key Experience and Competencies

The post holder should embody and demonstrate our core Crick values: Bold, Imaginative, Open, Dynamic and Collegial, in addition to the following:

Essential

• Proven experience in developing and managing large enterprise-scale HPC platforms in research or academic environments, with a focus on continuous professional development and industry certification.
• Strong leadership and experience in building teams to provide HPC support services and training.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with many teams, including those not under direct management.
• Understanding of scientific research processes, especially in bioinformatics, and their IT requirements.
• Expertise in data lifecycle management technology, particularly for big data such as image data and gene sequences.
• Familiarity with scientific applications such as CryoSPARC and Alphafold, and programming languages like R and Python.
• Experience managing teams to support large compute clusters and high-performance cluster file systems, with knowledge of technologies like Infiniband and job distribution systems.
• Appreciation of general IT services such as identity and access management, databases, web applications, and networking technologies.
• Awareness of enterprise Linux/macOS/Windows environments, virtualisation technologies such as vmware and oVirt, and public and private cloud platforms like AWS and OpenStack, and container technologies such as Kubernetes and Singularity.
• Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to work under pressure and manage strategic documentation, budgets, and vendor relationships.

Desirable

• Previous experience of working in a biomedical research environment.
• Experience in delivering IT services to support one of more of the following areas: Genomics, Structural Biology, Multi-omics, Image/Microscopy.

About Us

The Francis Crick Institute is an independent charity established to be a UK flagship for discovery research in biomedicine. Join us as we work to explore biology at all levels, from molecules through cells to entire organisms.

Our mission is to understand more about how living things work to help improve treatment, diagnosis and prevention of human disease and achieve economic opportunities for the UK.

In our institute, more than 2,000 staff and students use their wide-ranging knowledge and expertise to work across disciplines.

We combine this rigour with an open and interactive culture. We’re committed to bringing together people with varied research interests and expertise, including clinicians, physical scientists and applied scientists from our pharmaceutical partners, to achieve our increasingly ambitious goals.

Please note: all offers of employment are subject to successful security screening and continuous eligibility to work in the United Kingdom.

Find out what benefits the Crick has to offer:

For more information on our great pay and benefits package please click here: Pay and Benefits

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion:

We welcome applications from all backgrounds. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, pregnancy, age, disability, or civil partnership, marital or family status. We particularly welcome applications from people who are Minority Ethnic as they are currently underrepresented in the Crick at this level.

Diversity is essential to excellence in scientific endeavour. It increases breadth and perspective, leading to more innovation and creativity. We want the Crick to be a place where everyone feels valued and where diversity is celebrated and seen as part of the foundation for our Institute’s success.

The Crick is committed to creating equality of opportunity and promoting diversity and inclusivity. We all share in the responsibility to actively promote dignity, respect, inclusivity and equal treatment and it is our aim to ensure that these principles are reflected and implemented in all strategies, policies and practices.

Read more on our website: Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute researching the biology underlying human health.

At the Crick, scientists and staff collaborate to stretch the very limits of what we know about how life works. Our work is helping to understand why disease develops and to translate discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections and neurodegenerative diseases.

The Francis Crick Institute is a charity, founded by the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King’s College London.