System administrator within the GenomeDK high-performance computing facility

The Department of Biomedicine at Faculty of Health at Aarhus University invites applications for a position as a system administrator within the GenomeDK high-performance computing facility as per 1 June 2023 or as soon as possible thereafter. The position is a permanent full-time position.

GenomeDK  is a national high-performance computing (HPC) facility focused on genomics and bioinformatic analyses in precision medicine and life sciences. We currently manage 12 PB of high-performance storage (currently being expanded to 30 PB), 600+ users, and 600+ projects. GenomeDK is anchored under the Aarhus Genome Data Center which is a collaboration between Aarhus University and Central Denmark Region.

We are looking for a highly engaged, systematic, and service-minded system administrator for the GenomeDK team, which currently consists of two system administrators. The team is highly autonomous and deals with all aspects of GenomeDK operations.

Physically, we are located at the Bioinformatics Research Centre, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, and are thus very close to many of our largest users.

About the Department of Biomedicine

The Department of Biomedicine prioritises diversity and a good work environment, as this is a prerequisite for groundbreaking research. In a dynamic and international research environment, dedicated employees are looking to generate new knowledge within biomedical research areas such as infection and inflammation, membranes, neuroscience, and personalised medicine. The Department of Biomedicine provides research-based teaching of the highest quality and is responsible for a large part of the medical degree programme. Academic staff contribute to the teaching. English is the preferred language in the laboratory, at meetings and at seminars. The department employs approx. 500 people from all over the world, and they make use of the department's modern laboratory-, core- and animal facilities. The Department of Biomedicine focuses on innovation, entrepreneurship and collaboration with business and industry, and numerous researchers from the department have established companies to develop new medicinal treatments founded in strong scientific basic research. You can read more about the department

here

and about the faculty

here

.

Your job responsibilities

As system administrator, your primary tasks are maintenance of the high-performance computing facility and support of a diverse range of users. You contribute to the continued success of GenomeDK through continuously improving the services we provide for the benefit of our users. In your daily work, you have a close interaction with competent colleagues.

We work with a range of technologies, most importantly Linux (RHEL-derivative), Slurm, BeeGFS/Lustre, ZFS, Ansible and MariaDB. Most of our internal tools are written in Python, Bash, Rust, and C.

Your main tasks will consist of:

• carrying out day-to-day tasks to ensure smooth operation of the HPC facility,
• configuring and managing services via configuration management tools,
• planning and carrying out software updates,
• planning, purchasing, and setting up new hardware,
• ensuring that our internal and external documentation is up to date,
• building software packages for our users with Conda,
• responding to support tickets from our users,
• continuously monitoring system health.

We are an ISO 27001-certified facility, so you must understand and acknowledge the importance of continuously working with information security.

You will report to the Head of Department, Thomas G. Jensen.

Your competences

You have a background within computer science, computer engineering, distributed systems, or high-performance computing. Experience with bioinformatics, data science and/or the life sciences will be considered an advantage.

To apply for this position, you must possess most (but not necessarily all) of the below skills:

• proven experience managing multi-user, multi-host Linux-based systems,
• familiarity with distributed/parallel filesystems, preferably BeeGFS,
• familiarity with Infiniband/RoCE and Linux networking,
• skilled in at least one of the above-mentioned programming languages,
• familiarity with the Conda package manager, or similar package managers,
• friendly and helpful, as we have a strong focus on good support for our users,
• good at collaborating in a small team,
• strong analytical/problem solving/debugging skills,
• fluent in written and spoken English.

As a person, you have good interpersonal skills, are friendly and helpful and able to contribute to a good work environment.

As we provide services to Aarhus University Hospital for their clinical data analyses, you will take part in our flexible weekend duty rotation which involves two daily checks for urgent problems. The weekend duty is compensated on top of the negotiated salary.

We expect you to be fluent in oral and written English.

Questions about the position

If you have any questions about the position, please contact Dan Søndergaard by email

[email protected]

 or by telephone no. +45 2266 6877, or Professor Anders Børglum by email

[email protected]

.

Your place of work will be the Bioinformatics Research Centre, Universitetsbyen 81, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

We expect to conduct interviews in week 16.

Applicants invited for an interview must be able to produce a certificate of criminal record (‘straffeattest’) which will be reviewed as part of the hiring process.