Postdoctoral Research Associate - Research Software & Research Computing Facilitation

About UMass Amherst

UMass Amherst, the Commonwealth's flagship campus, is a nationally ranked public research university offering a full range of undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University sits on nearly 1,450-acres in the scenic Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts and offers a rich cultural environment in a bucolic setting close to major urban centers. In addition, the University is part of the Five Colleges (including Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College), which adds to the intellectual energy of the region.

Job Description

Research Computing & Data (RCD) in collaboration with the Center for Data Science (CDS) at University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) is hiring a Postdoctoral Research Associate in research software and research computing facilitation. UMass is a fast growing research computing leader in New England and this unique role provides ample opportunity to impact research computing both regionally and nationally. UMass Amherst’s primary research computing resource is the Unity Research Computing Platform, a collaborative cluster led by UMass Amherst in cooperation with UMass Dartmouth, UMass Lowell, UMass Boston, and the University of Rhode Island. Unity is housed at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), a joint datacenter which hosts stand alone and other collaborative research computing systems from UMass, MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, Boston University, and Yale, as well as a variety of other universities and colleges in partnership with one of the main datacenter sponsors.  

We are looking for professionals who are passionate about one or more of the following:

• Open source research software development and contributions in service to the research computing community at UMass and beyond.
• Creating innovative solutions for research software development, deployment, and workflows to leverage cutting-edge and prototype HPC and AI hardware. 
• Interfacing with the larger research computing community through conferences, research journal participation, open source software development and contributions, and education initiatives.
• Working with a high-energy team dedicated to building solutions for the next generation of research technologies and science.

Responsibilities:

• Provide research computing consulting for UMass Amherst and Unity researchers across subject areas. Consulting topics include, but are not limited to, high performance computing workflow and pipeline guidance and troubleshooting, research software optimization, and data management.
• Collaborate with other UMass Amherst RCD staff and research computing personnel at Unity partner institutions to identify and solve cyberinfrastructure problems.
• Contribute to RCD’s user education initiatives and strategy, including research computing documentation, workshops, short courses, and asynchronous tutorials. 
• Work with the RCD leadership team to develop and implement a strategy for leveraging and contributing to open source cyberinfrastructure and research computing projects, as well as developing and managing new open source projects as appropriate.
• Under the guidance of senior Research Computing staff and related faculty, develop, submit and execute grant proposals that align with the mission and goals of the Research Computing and Data Organization

Requirements

• Ph.D. in a field with a significant research computing component.
• Research or software development experience in a field with a significant research computing component.
• Proficiency with Linux or Unix operating systems and command line.
• Proficiency in at least one high-level programming language (e.g., Python, R, C, C++, Julia, Matlab).
• Ability to work well with the RCD team and the researchers we support.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, including in verbal and written technical conversations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Expertise in a computational field or method, including, but not limited to, numerical methods, machine learning, or parallel and distributed computing.
• Expertise in a parallelization method (e.g., CUDA or ROCm, MPI, OpenMP).
• Experience with high performance computing platforms and resource schedulers and managers (e.g., Slurm, PBS, HTCondor).
• Ability to organize and execute technical projects and manage participation of other RCD team members within the scope of that project.
• Skills in high performance computing, research computing, or computational science.
• Experience with facilitation or user support.
• Proficiency using Slurm.
• Expertise in a GPU parallelization method (e.g., CUDA or ROCm).
• Experience in distributed computing for AI/ML workflows.
• Experience with literate computing tools, such as Jupyter Notebooks or RStudio
• Informal or formal teaching experience, including peer tutoring or teaching assistantship
• Proficiency with version control, preferably git, and version control platforms like GitHub or GitLab

Additional Information

Salary range: $70,000 - $80,000. Salary will be commensurate with experience.

Initial appointment will be for two (2) years. Reappointment is contingent upon satisfactory performance and the availability of funding.

Application Instructions

Along with the application, please submit your CV, a cover letter, and the names and contact information for three (3) professional references.

UMass Amherst is committed to a policy of equal opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, caste, creed, sex, age, marital status, national origin, disability, political belief or affiliation, pregnancy and pregnancy-related condition(s), veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, genetic information, natural and protective hairstyle and any other class of individuals protected from discrimination in employment, admission to and participation in academic programs, activities, and services, and the selection of vendors who provide services or products to the University.  To fulfill that policy, UMass Amherst is further committed to a program of affirmative action to eliminate or mitigate artificial barriers and to increase opportunities for the recruitment and advancement of qualified minorities, women, persons with disabilities, and covered veterans.  It is the policy of UMass Amherst to comply with the applicable federal and state statutes, rules, and regulations concerning equal opportunity and affirmative action.