Summary of the role

The position is in the HPC team in the High Performance Computing and Storage Section of ECMWF’s Computing Department. The successful candidate will work in a small team and will support Copernicus developers and scientists in achieving the most efficient use of the Cray high-performance computing systems. This will involve providing advice and assistance in writing, maintaining, debugging and optimising large and demanding scientific codes.

Main duties and key responsibilities

• Assisting with the optimisation, restructuring and debugging of large scientific codes, used by both CAMS and C3S
• Liaising closely with Copernicus users and vendors to identify and resolve performance and functional issues considering the characteristics of the supercomputer’s specific architecture
• Investigating and evaluating the impact of different computer architectures and software on main codes used by both CAMS and C3S for Copernicus

Grade remuneration

The successful candidate will be recruited at the A2 grade, according to the scales of the Coordinated Organisations and the annual basic salary will be £54,776 net of tax. This position is assigned to the employment category STF-PL as defined in the Staff Regulations. Full details of salary scales and allowances are available on the ECMWF website at www.ecmwf.int/en/about/jobs, including the Centre’s Staff Regulations regarding the terms and conditions of employment. Starting date: As soon as possible. Length of contract: Four years. Location: The position will be based in the Reading area, in Berkshire, United Kingdom.

To submit your application, please click on the "Apply through website" button. Please click "Jobs at ECMWF" and select Vacancy Number VN15-25.

ECMWF has an Equal Opportunities Policy and applications from all suitably qualified candidates are welcome. Staff are usually recruited from among nationals of the Member States and Co-operating States. Staff from non-ECMWF States may be considered in exceptional cases where there is a strong need for a particular competency. Interviews for this position are expected to take place week commencing 1 June 2015

Personal attributes

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with a proactive and constructive approach
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Ability to communicate with and understand the complex requirements of scientists, engineers
• and professional staff in the development, deployment and documentation of software
• Flexibility to work closely with colleagues in a small team or independently as the situation
• requires, with the ability to adapt to changing organisational priorities and user needs

Qualifications and experience required

Education

A university degree, preferably in computer science or in a technical or scientific subject.

Experience

At least two years of recent experience in high-performance scientific computing; running, debugging and performance tuning of codes on massively parallel processing computer systems. Strong familiarity with parallel programming in a scientific environment using Fortran, MPI and/or OpenMP is required. Experience with C++ is desirable. A strong command of UNIX (and/or Linux), including shell and at least one scripting language such as Perl or python is required. Familiarity with methodologies of professional software development is desirable. Experience in working with GPGPU and/or other accelerator technologies would be an advantage. A track record in identifying, investigating and resolving technical problems

Language

Candidates must be able to work effectively in English and interviews will be conducted in English. A good knowledge of one of the Centre’s other working languages (French or German) would be an advantage.

ECMWF is both a research institute and a 24/7 operational service, producing and disseminating numerical weather predictions to its Member States. ECMWF carries out scientific and technical research directed to the improvement of its forecasts, collects and processes large amounts of observations, and manages a long-term archive of meteorological data. Satellite and in situ observations provide the information for up-to-date global analyses and climate reanalyses of the atmosphere, ocean and land surface. For details, see www.ecmwf.int/. ECMWF has been entrusted to operate the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) on behalf of the European Commission until the end of 2020. Copernicus is the European Union (EU) flagship Earth-observation programme. The programme ensures operational monitoring of the atmosphere, oceans, and continental surfaces, and will provide reliable, validated information services for a range of environmental and security applications.