The University

At Durham University we are proud of our people. A globally outstanding centre of educational excellence, a collegiate community of extraordinary people, a unique and historic setting - Durham is a university like no other. We believe that inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham enables Durham people to do outstanding things professionally and personally.

Across the University we have a huge variety of roles and career opportunities, which together make us a large and successful community, which is a key hub of activity within our region and nationally. We would be thrilled if you would consider joining our thriving University.

Further information about the University can be found here

The Role and Department

The Directorate of Advanced Research Computing (ARC) provides a broad computational capability to underpin and help define the nature of research and innovation that can be undertaken with the institution.

ARC's mission is to deliver a coherent strategy for the computational support of research: enabling research and innovation to be at the forefront of computational practice; enabling academic leadership through the adoption and evolution of leading technology; fostering associated expertise; and enhancing interdisciplinary collaborations. Leading-edge platforms including High Performance Computing, computational and cutting-edge data analytics methods, and growth and retention of vital capacity in research software engineering and technical R&D are at the core of this endeavour.

We organise our activity under three main pillars:

1. Research Computing Platforms

2. Research Software Engineering

3. Developing researcher computational skills

Which is delivered by the Administration, Research Computing Platforms (RCP) and Research Software Engineering (RSE) teams

The Research Computing Platforms (RCP) team provides facilities, training and support for people, across the University, engaged in computationally demanding research. Join us and:

Provide HPC & Cloud facilities and support the people who use them to:

• Run large- or small-scale simulations, data analyses and machine learning workloads

• Have the capability to tackle problems difficult or impossible to achieve on most desktops or laptops

• Exploit the capacity to run many tasks at the same time

Create strong collegiate relationships with academics and combine technical knowledge with the needs of different research domains to develop, improve and maintain services designed to optimise researcher time to solution by making services that:

• Are stable and secure

• Are easy to use, featureful and flexible in response to changing needs

• Deliver fast and predictable performance

Share specialist knowledge to colleagues within the research community, consultation and ensure effective knowledge transfer both across the institution and represent the University externally on matters of expertise.

Contribute to both local and regional/national services, such as the Hamilton HPC system, our experimental Mosaic research cloud and the EPSRC tier-2 HPC system "Bede", working with teams in Computing and Information Services (CIS), Estates and/or external providers as appropriate.

We are a support unit that spans all Faculties across the University and encourage applications from experienced individuals from a diverse range of domains.

Further information about the role and the responsibilities is at the bottom of this job description.

Working at Durham

A competitive salary is only one part of the many fantastic benefits you will receive if you join the University: you will also receive access to:

• 30 Days annual leave per year in addition to 8 public holidays and 4 customary days per year - a total of 42 days per year.
• The University closes between Christmas and New Year. We offer a generous pension scheme, As a new member of staff you will be automatically enrolled into the University Superannuation Scheme (USS).
• No matter how you travel to work, we have you covered. We have parking across campus, a cycle to work scheme which helps you to buy a bike and discount with local bus and train companies.
• There is a genuine commitment to developing our colleagues professionally and personally. There is a comprehensive range of development courses, apprenticeships and access to qualifications and routes to develop your career in the University. All staff have dedicated annual time to concentrate on their personal development opportunities.
• Lots of support for health and wellbeing including discounted membership for our state of the art sport and gym facilities and access to a 24-7 Employee Assistance Programme.
• On site nursery is available and access to holiday camps for children aged 5-16 throughout the year.
• Family friendly policies, including maternity and adoption leave, which are among the most generous in the higher education sector (and likely above and beyond many employers).
• The opportunity to take part in staff volunteering activities to make a difference in the local community
• Discounts are available via our benefits portal including; money off at supermarkets, high street retailers, IT products such as Apple, the cinema and days out at various attractions.
• A salary sacrifice scheme is also available to help you take advantage of tax savings on benefits.
• If you are moving to Durham, we can help with removal costs and we have a dedicated team who can help you with the practicalities such as house hunting and schools. If you need a visa, we cover most visa costs and offer an interest free loan scheme to pay for dependant visas.

Durham University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion

Our collective aim is to create an open and inclusive environment where everyone can reach their full potential and we believe our staff should reflect the diversity of the global community in which we work.

As a University equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are a key part of the University's Strategy and a central part of everything we do. We also live by our values and our Staff Code of Conduct: at Durham we actively work towards providing an environment where our staff and students can study, work and live in a community which is supportive and inclusive. It's important to us that all of our colleagues are aligned to both our values and commitment to EDI.

We welcome and encourage applications from members of groups who are under-represented in our work force including people with disabilities, women and black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. If you have taken time out of your career, and you feel it relevant, let us know about it in your application. If you are a candidate with a disability, we are committed to ensuring fair treatment throughout the recruitment process. We will make adjustments to support the interview process wherever it is reasonable to do so and, where successful, reasonable adjustments will be made to support people within their role.

What you need to demonstrate when you apply/Person Specification

When you apply it is important that you let us know what skills/experience you have from a similar role and/or what skills/experience you have which would make you right for this role. Further information about the role and responsibilities is at the end of this job description. Where a criteria has an asterisk* next to it, it may be given additional weighting when your application is considered.

Your application should cover the following criteria:

Essential Criteria

Qualifications/Experience

1. Educated to degree level (or equivalent experience) in computing or a related/applied discipline.

2. Experience of participating in internal or external networks to share and discuss good practice and develop strong and productive working relationships.

3. Experience of providing specialist advice and guidance to a range of customers and colleagues, including more senior colleagues.

4. Experience of implementing policies and procedures.

Skills/Abilities/Knowledge

5. Excellent spoken and written communication skills including the ability to develop effective working relationships, both internally and externally.

6. Strong digital competence across a range of digital skills including one or more of:-
• Unix operating systems such as Linux
• Shell scripting
• Computer languages such as Python or C
• Computer hardware such as servers, storage and networking.

7. Evidence of technical competencies and specialisations that are current with industry standards. Committed to continuing professional development to maintain professional recognition.

8. Ability to solve problems and decide on and plan appropriate solutions.

9. Knowledge and experience of ensuring compliance with regulatory and organisational policy and guidelines, including health and safety.

10. Ability to teach or train others on specific technical skills.

11. Experience of working as part of a team to achieve common goals as well as experience of working autonomously.

Desirable Criteria

We are happy to consider applicants who do not fulfil the following criteria, but those that do will be given additional weighting.

12. Achievement of relevant experience in the field, providing user and/or systems support in an academic or research-focused setting, using one or more of:
• Linux user/systems support
• Revision control and configuration management tools
• Large scale storage
• HPC technologies such as workload management systems, interconnects, parallel filesystems or MPI
• On premises or public cloud virtualisation technologies.

13. Professional knowledge and experience of compliance and regulations, local and national.

14. Experienced practitioner with a track record of supporting/providing an effective research environment or similar technically and organisationally complex environment.

15. Expert knowledge and expertise in one or more areas of research computing, including HPC, Big Data and Cloud Computing, and the application of skills to create, build, construct and realise new and innovative resources and methods to enable research outputs.

16. Ability to enter dialogue with researchers: influencing, challenging and responding to requirements posed by research questions.

17. Knowledge of research computing marketplace and trends.

How to Apply

To progress to the assessment stage, candidates must evidence each of the essential criteria required for the role in the person specification above. It will be at the discretion of the recruiting panel as to whether they will also consider any desirable criteria, but we would urge candidates to provide evidence for all criteria. Please don't forget to check if there is any weighted criteria (see above).

While some criteria will be considered at the shortlisting stage, other criteria may be considered later in the assessment process, such as questions at interview.

Submitting your application

We prefer to receive applications online.We will update you about your application at various points throughout the selection process, via automated emails from oure-recruitmentsystem. Please check your spam/junk folder periodically to make sure you have not missed any of our updates.

What you need to submit

• A CV: and
• A supporting statement or covering letter which demonstrates how you meet each of the criteria within the Person Specification in turn.

Contact details

For a chat about the role or any further information please contact;

• Dr Alan Real, Director, ARC
• Mark Dixon, Head of Research Computing Platforms, ARC
• Rebecca Appleby, ARC Administrator

Typical Role Requirements

Service Delivery/Development
• Show a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and the University's values.
• Provide specialist advice and guidance relating to your professional area of expertise in line with the University's policies, regulations and values.
• Provide the best possible service by continually reviewing what is required from service users and other stakeholders and contribute to ideas and service improvements.
• Provide specialist knowledge and support when interpreting and analysing complex data and information sources.
• Look for ways to improve processes, techniques and outputs/results across all areas of your work.
• Identify any learning needs that should be met by the service and design activities and arrange any training.
• Oversee specialist risk assessments and safety procedures and resolve incidents that require specialist expertise.
• Undertake development work to improve efficiency and effectiveness of research computing platforms.

Planning and Organisation
• Provide specialist advice to resolve technical problems, plan projects and continually develop and improve the service.
• Seek feedback from stakeholders so that research computing services are being adapted to meet customer expectations and to plan future requirements.
• Manage budgets and expenditure including buying (and returning) goods and services.

Research Support
• Design, build and maintain complex, specialist research computing equipment, systems and appliances.
• Provide advice on digital tools and infrastructure to ensure an appropriate approach to developing world class research.
• Apply maintenance schedules to ensure the safe and efficient use of technology, facilities and services to research and research-led teaching activities.
• Manage the day-to-day delivery of a high-quality research computing facility/platform and service to ensure research, research-led teaching and knowledge exchange outputs.
• Record, monitor and collate information to analyse patterns and trends as part of research and research-led teaching activities.
• Be responsible for the design, set-up, maintenance and integrity of research and research-led teaching facilities, technology and resources within ARC.
• Supervise, support and advise during practical and test teaching and research work activities, projects, and self-directed sessions.
• Support the delivery of undergraduate and post graduate teaching and learning activities, and income generation, where appropriate.
• Contribute to the planning, design and delivery of research outputs and prepare innovative teaching/research proposals.

Communication/Liaison
• Provide specialist advice and guidance on University health and safety and compliance issues.
• Use your operational expertise to lead and participate in business meetings, working groups and sub-committees with users and stakeholders within the institution.
• Collaborate with internal and external academics, industry and technical specialists to support the delivery of research projects and to contribute to the generation of external income.
• Liaise with internal and external agencies, suppliers, local authorities, industries and visitors where appropriate.
• Meet the development needs of your stakeholders and users, providing training when required to convey specialist information to researchers across the organisation.
• Create positive working relationships, including internal and external networks, using your networks to increase your knowledge and skills and swap information with peers.
• Contribute to promotional events and presentations at conferences.
• Contribute to the broader community of practice for research computing professionals, acting as a key point of reference to the community within the area of specialism
• Any other reasonable duties.

Useful links

If you would like further information you may find the following will help:

Information about department:https://www.dur.ac.uk/arc/

Information about the team:https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/advanced-research-computing/computing-platforms/

Please note that in submitting your application Durham University will be processing your data. We would ask you to consider the relevant University Privacy Statement Privacy Notices - Durham University which provides information on the collation, storing and use of data.

When appointing to this role the University must ensure that it meets any applicable immigration requirements, including salary thresholds which are applicable to some visas.