Skip to main content

This job has expired

Research Applications Specialist (Baskerville) - IT Services

Employer
University of Birmingham
Location
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Salary
£30,942.00 - £40,322.00
Closing date
Apr 19, 2021
Position Details

Department: IT Services

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £30,942 to £40,322, with potential progression once in post to £42,792

Grade 7

Full Time

Fixed term contract for up to 4 years

Job Description

The Research Applications Specialist plays a central role in the Research Software Group, focused on building and providing core support for the rich and diverse range of advanced applications in the supercomputing systems operated by Advanced Research Computing (ARC) for the University of Birmingham's research community and the Baskerville consortium. The focus of this post is the EPSRC-funded Baskerville Tier 2 accelerated compute system, although at times the postholder will support applications and researchers using other ARC systems.

Work Context

The University of Birmingham has been awarded £4m to develop a new accelerated compute system. The project is a collaboration between the University of Birmingham, The Rosalind Franklin Institute, The Alan Turing Institute and Diamond Light Source, the UK's national synchrotron. It is being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). This Tier 2 facility will provide a state-of-the-art platform for graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated computing. It will help researchers to accelerate machine learning algorithms and simulation technology, with wide-ranging applications in computer vision, language processing, molecular modelling, and materials science. The system's capacity will be shared between the four partners, with 40% of its capacity reserved for the EPSRC Access to HPC program. The system therefore serves a large and diverse community of users. See https://www.baskerville.ac.uk/press-release/ for more details.

The Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) delivers a broad range of computing services to enable world-class research. Focused on the application layer, the post holder will contribute to initiatives in all areas of service innovation and delivery enabling researchers to fully exploit the compute power of Baskerville and BEAR. BEAR services support research across the entire spectrum of academic endeavour at Birmingham from Music to Medicine, Computer Science to Theology, Physics to English, Economics to Climatology.

The needs of researchers at a broad-based institution like Birmingham are necessarily hugely varied, often novel and frequently complex as are the systems and solutions required. Supporting researchers' needs and being responsive to them are fundamental to this post. Individuals working in ARC need to be resourceful, innovative and attuned to the research process.

BEAR has grown to provide a rich set of capabilities to cater for a wide range of disciplines and the ever-evolving computing needs of our creative and ambitious research community. Our installed base of research applications may well be the richest in the sector and are available on BEAR Cloud VMs and BlueBEAR (our HPC system). The applications available on Baskerville will be a targeted subset of those available on other BEAR systems, and may include other applications not used on BEAR.

The postholder will join a team of three or four people who already install and support the research applications on BEAR compute systems. While the postholder will focus on Baskerville within the team, they will also work on applications on BEAR systems and other members of the team will work on those on Baskerville - as part of a supportive, collaborative working environment.

Main Duties
  • Deployment, maintenance and support of research software on the Baskerville and BEAR platforms, including specialist HPC applications, Open Source codes and commercial software
  • Maintenance of the tools required to manage, license, maintain, test (manually and automatically) and deploy the software efficiently
  • Monitor the Baskerville service and perform routine health checks to detect and respond proactively to indications of a deterioration of user service levels, developing and applying standard fixes in conjunction with both software and infrastructure colleagues.
  • Respond to application related user tickets and troubleshoot incidents and problems, in collaboration with both researchers and with infrastructure colleagues.
  • Provide advice and support to users running HPC workloads, from basic to advanced levels
  • Supporting training and outreach activity to enable exploitation of these applications
  • Write, source and maintain appropriate and accessible user and technical documentation to support services.
  • Associated Licence administration
  • Advise the team and researchers on related licence queries and ensure Baskerville and BEAR usage adheres to the licensing models of installed applications and components.
  • Help to triage incoming user queries relating to Baskerville and BEAR, taking responsibility on duty days for triaging all Team tickets effectively to enable resolution of all issues in a timely way.
  • Liaise with suppliers in relation to the software requirements of supported research groups and their inter-operation with Baskerville and BEAR.
  • Provide central expertise on research software which may be called upon by other departments within the University.
  • Where possible, assist with wider Research Software Group goals and tasks as required.
  • Support and promote the Baskerville and BEAR services, managed by the Advanced Research Computing Team and assist researchers and research groups to utilize the service effectively.
  • Undertake other such duties as may be required from time to time in furtherance of the work of IT Services


Person Specification
  • Formal education to degree level or equivalent.
  • Experience in a relevant/related computing role is essential and must include compiling and supporting a range of complex software on Linux (ideally in an HPC environment).
  • Experience of working with compiler tool chains and software library dependencies
  • Experience using EasyBuild would be an advantage (see https://docs.easybuild.io)
  • Proven scripting skills in an appropriate language, such as Bash or Python
  • Experience and demonstrable competence using Linux and associated software applications.
  • Familiarity with AI or Data Science applications would be advantageous
  • Demonstrated ability to solve complex problems
  • Experience with managing licences would be an advantage
  • Familiarity with software curation, revision control systems and development environments
  • Experience of producing accessible (meaning accessible to someone with little knowledge of your discipline), technical documentation (or similar)
  • Proven ability to work as part of a team
  • Proven ability to build constructive relationships with customers (or similar)
  • A self-motivated learner with a track record of continually updating skills.
  • Excellent communication skills, both written and oral.
  • Knowledge of Higher Education, Research and its environment is desirable.
  • Familiarity with ITIL would be advantageous


Dimensions
  • No other posts report to this one.
  • The role involves supporting and collaborating with a diverse community of users to help them to get the most benefit from one of the UK's most powerful computing platforms. The post holder will work under the direction of a Group Leader with more advanced skills in the same area (amongst other things).
  • Customers are UK research groups from a wide range of institutions and disciplines and their collaborators (nationally and internationally). Success will enable delivery of major research outputs and the winning of further research income. The post holder is not expected to generate income directly.
  • Works as part of a team that is essential to the effective exploitation of the multi-million pound Baskerville and BEAR infrastructure.
  • Will maintain the diverse portfolio of research applications in Baskerville and BEAR and related licences. Note that Birmingham provides several hundred applications centrally, which is more than any other RUGIT institution. This is demanding on the individual and the Team.


Planning and organising

The individual will receive day to day guidance but is expected to be able to carry out 80% of the role under their own initiative, following an extended induction period. This includes scheduling their own time effectively and prioritising standard tasks. The Group leader will review priorities with the individual and expect to give instructions in around 20% of cases.

Some work will be delegated by the Group Leader in response to user tickets in the Service Desk, some will be delegated directly as a result of collaborations with PIs but balance is likely to be operational with repeated routines/updates/renewals. Note that many of these will be complex tasks with inadequate documentation/direction so will need solving or adaptations before implementation.

The role holder will be expected to work out and then maintain a plan that balances the regular cycle of updates with their other tasks and agree a pattern of working with the Group Leader. On top of this, there will be urgent tasks assigned and the post holder will be expected to remain responsive to the needs of users, with the support of the Group Leader.

Problem solving and decision making

i) without reference to others
  • Testing and implementation of new software or new versions (to meet the needs of the client research groups). Consultation may be required for the most complex cases or where potential conflicts exist.
  • Ongoing maintenance and support of research applications, including taking short-term remedial actions in the event of failures and other performance problems and instigating full and effective communications with customers
  • The execution of a range of healthchecks and diagnostic routines for the early detection of problems with the user service
  • The execution of a set of agreed remedial actions
  • trouble-shooting Service Desk incidents, taking remedial action or collaborating with infrastructure specialists for system level issues.


ii) after consulting others
  • Appropriate security strategies to be applied to a specific implementation (consult Group Leader).
  • Appropriate/optimal licensing in the light of the local needs, wider usage and opportunities for cost effective purchasing.
  • Updating software management tools
  • Issuing major updates to user documentation (after peer review)
  • Implementing new health checks and tests to detect or avoid repeated problems


iii) or that would be referred to someone else
  • issues which are the responsibility of other IT Services' sections, including desktop and admin computing matters.
  • Identity and access management policy and service provision - refer to Network Team
  • Underlying infrastructure issues/failures where no workround or fix has been supplied
  • Security standards (refer to Group Leader)
  • Security incidents (refer to Group Leader)


Informal enquires to Andrew Edmondson - a.c.edmondson@bham.ac.uk

We value diversity at The University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community '

Valuing excellence; sustaining investment

Get job alerts

Create a job alert and receive personalized job recommendations straight to your inbox.

Create alert