King's College London

About us

Our primary mission is to facilitate world-class computational and data-intensive research by bridging the gap between complex IT infrastructure and academic discovery.

The department manages the CREATE ecosystem (Computational Research, Engineering, and Technology Environment), a suite of advanced services that includes High Performance Computing (HPC), Cloud platforms, and Trusted Research Environments (TREs). Beyond hardware, the department is a hub of expertise, offering Research Software Engineering (RSE) support and consultancy to support researchers across all faculties, ensuring that King’s remains at the forefront of scientific innovation.

About the role

This is a pivotal opportunity for someone interested in getting broad experience in High Performance Computing and related technologies with a view to pursuing roles such as a Research Software Engineer and Infrastructure or Operations specialist (in areas such as, storage, networking, security and specific technologies such as Openstack). Your technical expertise will directly support world-class scientific discovery. As a core member of the Operations team, you will ensure the seamless operation of critical research infrastructure, including the CREATE High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster, OpenStack Cloud, Trusted Research Environments (TREs), and Research Data Storage. Your primary purpose is to empower the research community by optimizing the utilisation of these technologies, acting as the essential bridge between complex hardware and the scientists who rely on it to push the boundaries of knowledge. The breadth of the role makes it suitable for a wide range of candidates from those that have studied in more formal circumstances such as PhD completers to graduates in Computer Science and other disciplines who have explored some of the related technologies under their own initiative.

The role offers a stimulating variety of responsibilities that blends hands-on engineering with high-level software support. You will be active in the field, attending data centres to install, configure, and maintain hardware, while simultaneously developing a deep understanding of the systems to troubleshoot issues effectively. Beyond physical infrastructure, you will drive continuous improvement through code and automation, using tools such as Puppet, Spack, and GitLab/GitHub repositories to deploy solutions and manage CI/CD pipelines. Whether you are maintaining software for the HPC cluster or helping cloud users configure instances for internet access, your technical versatility will be key.

Collaboration and communication are at the heart of this position. You will actively engage with researchers, responding to queries via tickets and forums, and occasionally embedding within specific project groups to provide tailored technical guidance and leadership. You will also manage relationships with external suppliers to resolve hardware faults and ensure robust documentation is maintained. To ensure you remain at the cutting edge of this rapidly evolving field, the department is committed to your growth, providing one dedicated day a fortnight (or equivalent) for personal professional development. If you are looking for a role that combines technical challenge with meaningful impact, this is an ideal opportunity.

This is a full time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1.      Bachelor’s degree with significant computational / computer science components or demonstrable equivalent experience in relevant technologies

2.      Strong verbal and written communication skills

3.      Experience with Linux command line utilities

4.      Competence in a high-level programming language and demonstrable ability to learn relevant technologies

5.      Logical and methodical approach to problem solving and technical troubleshooting

6.      Strong customer service ethos (able to cater for technical novices to subject matter experts)

Desirable criteria

1.      Significant Python development skills (e.g. working with Yaml and Json for significant ETL operations)

2.      Significant web development skills (e.g. using frameworks such as Laravel, serving sites from docker containers)

3.      Configuring and diagnosing issues with computer networks (taught, self-taught or professional)

4.      Configuring and diagnosing issues with Linux based storage systems (taught, self-taught or professional)

5.      Significant Linux administration experience (taught, self-taught or professional)

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

At King’s, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university.

The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension.

We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination.

When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King’s guidance.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job description. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day.

We encourage you to apply at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment as once we have closed a vacancy you will be unable to submit your application.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘ How we Recruit’ pages.