Head of Research Computing Platforms

This is a full-time, permanent position on Crick Terms and Conditions of Employment.

Summary

The Head of Research Computing Platforms will be part of the Information Technology Office (ITO) team and report directly to the Crick CIO. They will work closely with Crick scientists at all levels of the Institute to collaboratively plan and manage platforms that support the current and future needs of the Crick scientific community.

The post holder will be responsible for the collaborative delivery of the platforms and services to science through directly managed teams and in liaison with the wider ITO organisation, working very closely with teams supporting Research Data Management and Research Software Engineering & AI to deliver a unified Scientific Computing function to the organisation, as well as with Projects, Architecture, Infrastructure and Helpdesk functions.

It is also expected that you will take an active role in working with the Crick partners and other relevant external contacts, in order to explore opportunities for collaborative development and/or sharing of resources.

Key Responsibilities

The Crick has recently installed the second wave of its scientific computing infrastructure, which currently provides 25PB of high-performance storage (with offsite backup and long-term archive) and over 12,000 cores of general-purpose compute, and multiple GPU clusters (H100, A100, L40) to support the varied needs of the organisation.

The Head of Scientific Computing is accountable for the planning and delivery of the ongoing development and growth of the scientific IT infrastructure, ensuring that the Institute develops a sustainable model of investment that takes into account both core and response mode funding; forecasting of future needs; effective data lifecycle management and opportunities to collaborate with external partners. They are additionally accountable for HPC applications, including training and support, delivered in collaboration with other teams across the organisation.

Specific objectives include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Understand the scientific and research requirements of the Crick's scientific programmes to advise and work in partnership with researchers and the ITO team to deliver scientific computing platforms appropriately to meet their scientific program needs.
2. Work with the scientific community to develop existing governance structures and provide processes for allocation of research computing platform resources (storage and compute).
3. Continued development of the strategy for sustainable growth of the Crick's scientific computing platforms.
4. Develop the Crick's strategy for world class data lifecycle management technology solutions and best practices.
5. Take the lead in developing a strategy for business continuity and disaster recovery of the scientific data and systems.
6. Establish an external advisory panel to validate the Crick's strategies and provide feedback.
7. Liaise with external groups to develop and/or leverage shared infrastructure for the benefit of Crick researchers.
8. Work with researchers to explore the use and value of new technology to store, analyse and present data.
9. Provide support to researchers in their use and development of programmes and algorithms to analyse data.
10. Develop strong relationships with the Infrastructure and Helpdesk team.
11. Recruit, maintain and motivate team members to develop a culture of professional excellence.
12. Use the Crick's project and PMO approaches to support the effective and transparent delivery of projects.
13. Manage the Scientific Computing revenue and capital budgets and support the CIO in management of the overall ITO budget.
14. Provide reporting on the operational performance of Research Computing Platform services.

Key Experience and Competencies

The post holder should embody and demonstrate our core Crick values: Bold, Imaginative, Open, Dynamic and Collegial, in addition to the following:

1. Proven experience in developing and managing large enterprise-scale HPC platforms in research or academic environments.
2. Strong leadership and experience in building teams to provide HPC support services and training.
3. Demonstrated ability to collaborate with many teams.
4. Understanding of scientific research processes, especially in bioinformatics, and their IT requirements.
5. Expertise in data lifecycle management technology for big data.
6. Familiarity with scientific applications and programming languages like R and Python.
7. Experience managing teams to support large compute clusters and high-performance cluster file systems.
8. Appreciation of general IT services.
9. Awareness of enterprise Linux/macOS/Windows environments and public/private cloud platforms.
10. Strong problem-solving skills and ability to manage strategic documentation and budgets.
11. Previous experience of working in a biomedical research environment.
12. Experience in delivering IT services in Genomics, Structural Biology, or related fields.

About Us

The Francis Crick Institute is an independent charity established to be a UK flagship for discovery research in biomedicine. Join us as we work to explore biology at all levels, from molecules through cells to entire organisms.

Our mission is to understand more about how living things work to help improve treatment, diagnosis and prevention of human disease.

Please note: all offers of employment are subject to successful security screening and continuous eligibility to work in the United Kingdom.