System Engineer for a Cloud-like HPC Infrastructure

Project background

The Singapore-ETH Centre was established in 2010 by ETH Zurich - The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF), as part of the NRF’s CREATE campus. As ETH Zurich's only research centre outside of Switzerland, the centre has strengthened the research capacity of ETH Zurich to develop sustainable solutions to global challenges in Switzerland, Singapore and the surrounding regions.

Set in Asia, in a rapidly urbanising region, the Singapore-ETH Centre aims to provide practical solutions to some of the most pressing challenges on urban sustainability, resilience and health through its programmes: Future Cities Lab Global (FCL Global) and Future Health Technologies (FHT).

The centre serves as an intellectual hub for research, bringing together principal investigators and researchers from diverse disciplines and backgrounds. To promote the exchange of ideas and expertise, our researchers actively collaborate with universities and research institutes and engage with industry and government agencies to translate knowledge to practical solutions to real-world problems.

The AIS Instrumentation Gym is a multi-tier ML platform being built by both the National University of Singapore and the Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC) for shared scientific instruments (e.g., electron microscopy, X-ray imaging, and light microscopy). It supports researchers across three compute scales: laptop-based prototyping (S-Gym), single-GPU workstations (M-Gym), and multi-node HPC at the National Supercomputing Centre Singapore (L-Gym).

The Gym's purpose is to close the gap between high-dimensional scientific data and hypothesis generation. It does this by turning raw imaging data into learned, interpretable representations that scientists can explore as navigable landscapes: making patterns, anomalies, and structure legible at scales human intuition can no longer reach unaided.

As an ecosystem, the Gym brings together domain scientists, ML researchers, and systems builders around a common platform. We are now hiring full-time engineers and researchers to build, validate, and scale it.

Job description

As a System Engineer for a Cloud-like HPC Infrastructure you will:

• Manage the HPC backbone for the AIS Instrumentation Gym, serving as a one-stop, end-to-end research platform for AI4S workflows.
• Implement integrated data mobility protocols to ensure seamless, secure data movement between distributed research sites (e.g., NUS, NTU, NSCC, CSCS).
• Manage sustainable data retention policies, implementing tiered storage solutions that balance fast-access for active training with archival for long-term reproducibility.
• Support federated reproducibility by developing workflows that allow dataset cloning/forking across multiple HPC locations to reduce duplication of effort.
• Manage and provision the core IT infrastructure using IaC tools (Ansible, Terraform/OpenTofu).
• Install and manage the system management platform (OpenCHAMI) and container orchestration system (Kubernetes).
• Administer the management plane to support multi-tenant vClusters and dynamic vService creation.

Position requires quarterly travel to Switzerland to synchronise with the core Swiss team. Join us to operate a HPC infrastructure at the bleeding edge of innovation, driving impact within a world-class tech stack.

Profile

Must-haves:

• A bachelor’s degree or higher in computer engineering, computer science, a relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• You should have a knowledge of:

1. Microservice architecture
2. Automation tools and framework, including CI/CD processes and ecosystem (e.g., Gitlab CI, HashiCorp Vault)
3. Developing Ansible configurations
4. Versioning systems and CI/CD workflows such as ArgoCD
5. Kubernetes
6. Learn OpenCHAMI
7. IaC tools like Terraform/OpenTofu
8. Experience with distributed or federated research infrastructure (e.g., cross-site data transfer, secure multi-site authentication).
9. Understanding of HPC workflows and data retention policies in a multi-tenant research environment.

Preferred:

• Experience with data-centric HPC workloads and cross-site research infrastructure.
• Familiarity with the research lifecycle (data cleaning, provenance tracking, and model lifecycle management).
• Personal qualities:

1. Self-motivated and proactive team player
2. Strong communication skills or interest in developing them
3. Strong problem-solving mindset with tolerance for uncertainty and change
4. Understands user needs and works collaboratively to address them
5. Adaptive and willing to learn new technologies with and from others
6. Comfortable tackling complex or ambiguous problems
7. Comfortable admitting when you don’t know, reaching out and leveraging the right expertise when needed

• Project management and methodology:

1. Experience with working in self-organised teams
2. Familiarity with Agile methodology
3. Experience with test-driven development is a plus

We offer

• Accredited with 5 Tripartite Standards by Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) Singapore.
• A diverse workplace with 32 nationalities, offering ample opportunities for mutual learning.
• Positive and inclusive working environment
• 25 days of annual leave for fixed-term contracts
• 1 day of Birthday Leave
• Annual dental benefits
• Committed to being a supportive employer as you prioritize your physical and mental wellness
• Comprehensive healthcare insurance coverage 
• Flexible hybrid work arrangement (up to 2 days per week from home)
• Abundant networking opportunities across various disciplines
• Accredited with NS mark certification

The Singapore-ETH Centre is an equal opportunity and family-friendly employer. All candidates will be evaluated on their merits and qualifications, without regards to gender, race, age or religion.

Singapore-ETH Centre

The Singapore-ETH Centre provides a multicultural and interdisciplinary environment to researchers working on diverse themes focussed on sustainable and liveable cities, resilient urban systems, and patient-centric healthcare. The centre is home to a community of over 100 doctoral, postdoctoral and professorial researchers working in three main programmes: Future Cities Laboratory, Future Resilient Systems, and Future Health Technologies.