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Position Details

IT Services

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £33,348 to £43,155 with potential progression once in post to £45,737

Grade 7

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 02 May 2023

Background

The University of Birmingham aspires to establish itself as a World Top 50 university by 2030, and the Advanced Research Computing department (ARC) has a key part to play in achieving this aim. ARC is a well-respected, award-winning team with a national and international profile. Our team is continuously growing, and we are excited to announce that we are looking for talented individuals to fill seven brand new posts:

• Senior ARC Systems Engineer
• Senior Research Software Engineer and Manager
• Senior Research Data Scientists (3 posts)
• Research Applications Specialist
• Summer student – Research Software Assistant

For further details of these posts please see our blog .

The University of Birmingham is a global institution working within a diverse and vibrant City, offering an inspiring education to our students, and undertaking critically important research. We are a place of open, critical thinking, and the creation, sharing and dissemination of knowledge. Professional Services put students at the heart of all they do and enable an exceptional educational experience. They provide outstanding support to our researchers and help the University to grow its influence regionally, nationally, and globally.

They ensure the University’s resources are used wisely, manage and improve the infrastructure which sits at the heart of the institution, and support decisions to be made quickly and based on sound evidence. Our Birmingham Professional programme operates across the University, supporting colleagues to network and collaborate, offering opportunities to learn and develop, contributing to the delivery of the University’s objectives, and helping everyone to understand the broader context within which we work.

Department Summary

The Advanced Research Computing team (ARC) delivers a suite of computing services to enable world-class research under the name of the Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR). Focused on the application layer, the post holder will contribute to initiatives in all areas of service innovation and delivery (including HPC, HTC, data analytics, image rendering and visualisation) enabling researchers to fully exploit the compute power of BEAR. The services support research across the entire spectrum of academic endeavour at Birmingham from Music to Medicine, Computer Science to Theology, Physics to English, Economics to Climatology.

BEAR uses complex, large-scale architectures based on Unix, Linux, Openstack and enterprise class storage infrastructures. These need to be configured and maintained to the highest standards of reliability, performance, and quality. Business continuity and high service levels are demanded for mission-critical corporate services and for those supporting the core activities of research, teaching, and learning.

The needs of researchers at a broad-based institution like Birmingham are necessarily hugely varied, often novel and frequently complex as are the systems and solutions required. Supporting researchers’ needs and being responsive to them are fundamental to this post.

BEAR has grown to provide a rich set of capabilities to cater for a wide range of disciplines and the ever-evolving computing needs of our creative and ambitious research community. Our installed base of research applications may well be the richest in the sector and are available on BEAR Cloud VMs and for batch processing in BlueBEAR (our HPC system) and the BEAR Portal. Individuals working in ARC need to be resourceful, innovative, and attuned to the research process.

Role Summary

The Research Applications Specialist plays a central role in delivering and supporting BEAR services. The post is located in the BEAR Applications team (part of the Research Software Group) along with colleagues in similar roles. This role is focused on building and providing core support for the rich and diverse range of advanced applications in BEAR for the University of Birmingham's research community.

Main Duties

• Deployment, maintenance and support of research software on the BEAR platforms, including specialist HPC applications, Open Source codes and commercial software – installed primarily using EasyBuild.
• Respond to application related user tickets and troubleshoot incidents and problems, in collaboration with both researchers and with infrastructure colleagues.
• Supporting training and outreach activity to enable exploitation of these applications.
• Maintenance of the associated user and technical documentation.
• In conjunction with the Research Software Group, develop and maintain the tools and skills to automate or otherwise improve the processes around the management and maintenance of our rich and diverse set of research applications.
• Advise for the team and researchers on related licence queries and ensure BEAR usage adheres to the licensing models of installed applications and components.
• Join the BEAR Triage Team, taking responsibility on duty days for triaging all Team tickets effectively to enable resolution of all issues in a timely way.
• Support and promote BEAR compute services, managed by the Advanced Research Computing Team and assist researchers and research groups to utilize the services effectively.
• Promotes equality and values diversity, acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.
• Supports the University’s sustainability agenda through resource efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Person Specification

• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications) or relevant technical qualification and considerable relevant experience. Where no equivalent qualification is held, significant practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of more demanding roles will be required demonstrating the conceptual understanding required.
• Experience in a relevant/related computing role is essential and must include compiling and supporting a range of complex software on Linux (ideally in an HPC environment).
• Experience of working with compiler tool chains and software library dependencies.
• Proven scripting skills in an appropriate language, such as Bash or Python Experience and demonstrable competence using Linux and associated software applications.
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex problems.
• Familiarity with software curation, revision control systems and development environments.
• Experience of producing accessible (meaning accessible to someone with little knowledge of your discipline), technical documentation (or similar).
• Proven ability to work as part of a team.
• Proven ability to build constructive relationships with customers (or similar).
• A self-motivated learner with a track record of continually updating skills.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral.
• Knowledge of Higher Education, Research and its environment is desirable.
• Familiarity with ITIL would be advantageous.
• In depth up to date specialist understanding and experience in a relevant scientific, technical or IT specialism.
• Evidence of literacy and numeracy.
• GCSEs to a minimum of grade C in English and Mathematics (or equivalent qualifications).
• Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and how to actively ensure in day to day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly.

Informal enquires to Andrew Edmondson, email: [email protected]

View our staff values and behaviours here

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working .