HPC Systems Specialist – Intern

Grade UE04: £25,733 to £28,381 per annum

College of Science & Engineering / Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) 

Full time: 35 hours per week

Fixed term: for 12 months

Number of positions: 2

 

The Opportunity

EPCC, the UK's leading research supercomputing centre, has an exciting internship opportunity for undergraduate students looking to undertake a 12 month industry placement in 2025/26. 

EPCC is part of the University of Edinburgh and hosts and manages a unique collection of leading-edge systems at the Advanced Computing Facility (ACF), a secure state-of-the-art facility located on the Bush Estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh. These include the UK’s national supercomputing service (ARCHER2) and the Edinburgh International Data Facility (EIDF). We provide researchers and industry with a range of services including high performance computing, AI-capable GPU and Cerebras wafer-scale clusters, access to high performance VMs in our Data Science Cloud and secure data storage for the National Safe Haven.

EPCC has a long and successful history of providing placements and graduate apprenticeships, with many of our team having initially joined via this route, and is committed to providing training, development and coaching to enable placement students to succeed in their studies and early careers.

Placement students will join the friendly EPCC Systems team that provides infrastructure deployment and support, system administration, cybersecurity and operations functions for the systems hosted at the ACF. 

You will:

• Support and develop systems hosted at the ACF, including running health checks, monitoring, undertaking operating system, driver and firmware updates, investigating queries raised by colleagues or users, working with suppliers to diagnose and resolve hardware and system configuration issues and helping drive continual improvement in our systems and processes.
• Help commission new systems and hardware at the ACF, including racking, cabling, operating system installation, documentation in our configuration management system and trouble-shooting and issue resolution as systems are made available to users.
• Provide support for the day-to-day running of the ACF with the Data Centre Manager, including managing contractor and visitor access, site security and deliveries to the site, taking cognisance of health and safety procedures.

 

Your skills and attributes for success

• Vocational qualification equivalent to SCQF 8 or a degree in a computing subject. 
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to work independently, prioritise workloads and follow tasks through to successful completion.
• Ability to troubleshoot and resolve issues independently and as part of a team.
• Excellent team working and team building skills.
• A strong interest in emerging computer technologies and an enthusiasm for broadening knowledge about computing and IT, with a willingness and enthusiasm to learn and develop new skills and knowledge in line with the requirements of the role.
• A good, demonstrable working knowledge of managing different operating systems and support in a networked environment, with practical experience in Linux server administration, shell scripting and Python desirable.
• Understanding of issues relating to system and information security.

 

Click to view a copy of the full job description (opens new browser tab). 

 

As a valued member of our team you can expect

• A competitive salary.
• An exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work. 
• To be part of a diverse and vibrant international community 
• Comprehensive Staff Benefits, such as a generous holiday entitlement, a defined benefits pension scheme, staff discounts, family-friendly initiatives, and flexible work options. Check out the full list on our staff benefits page (opens in a new tab) and use our reward calculator to discover the total value of your pay and benefits 

 

Other information

12 months, 35 hour week, start flexible but generally mid August. 

University of Edinburgh Grade UE04 Step 1 (£25,733 pa from March 2025)

Primarily office based, split across our sites at the Advanced Computing Facility, Bush Estate, Penicuik EH26 0QA and the Bayes Centre, 47 Potterrow, Edinburgh EH8 9BT. 

Working onsite is required for a number of the responsibilities of this role and provides the highest levels of support and mentoring, but where responsibilities allow some home working may be agreed. 

 

Championing equality, diversity and inclusion

The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality.

Prior to any employment commencing with the University you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK. Further information is available on our right to work webpages (opens new browser tab) 

The University is unable to sponsor the employment of international workers in this role. International applicants will therefore be unable to apply for and secure a Skilled Worker visa. They will only be able to take up this role if they can demonstrate an alternative right to work in the UK.  

 

Key dates to note

The closing date for applications is 17 March 2025.

Unless stated otherwise the closing time for applications is 11:59pm GMT. If you are applying outside the UK the closing time on our adverts automatically adjusts to your browsers local time zone. 

Interviews will be held in March/April.

As a world-leading research-intensive University, we are here to address tomorrow’s greatest challenges. Between now and 2030 we will do that with a values-led approach to teaching, research and innovation, and through the strength of our relationships, both locally and globally.