IT Architect 4 - 113661

Department Overview:

As an Organized Research Unit of UC San Diego, the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is considered a leader in data-intensive computing and cyberinfrastructure, providing resources, services, and expertise to the national research community, including industry and academia. Cyberinfrastructure refers to an accessible, integrated network of computer-based resources and expertise, focused on accelerating scientific inquiry and discovery. SDSC supports hundreds of multidisciplinary programs spanning a wide variety of domains, from earth sciences and biology to astrophysics, bioinformatics, and health IT. SDSC launched Comet, a petascale supercomputer that joins the Center's data-intensive Gordon cluster. SDSC is a partner in XSEDE (eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment), the most advanced collection of integrated digital resources and services in the world.

The S3 group within SDSC will engage in 3 primary activities: i) examining SDSC software creation projects for business models for continued sustainability, ii) operating the HUBzero infrastructure which involves the creation and ongoing operation and development of the HUBzero software platform, and iii) leading the Science Gateways Community Institute which involves coordinating the efforts of 45 personnel around the United States as members of a distributed virtual organization funded by NSF that provide consulting services to the science gateway community.

Position Overview:

The IT Architect 4 will apply advanced IT architecture concepts and campus / medical center / OP or community-specific objectives to resolve highly complex issues with significant impact on the organization, regularly work on issues where analysis of situations or data requires an in-depth evaluation of variable factors, and effectively selects criteria for evaluating results.

The incumbent will act as an architectural lead for large scale projects requiring significant cross functional design. Such designs will include all aspects of science gateways and scientific applications. Designs may involve green field projects starting fresh or re-architecting existing major software projects and will include implementation language, composable service decisions, service interfaces, database architectures and designs (standard, non-SQL, and custom), design for fast performance at scale, message queueing, middleware services, large data import facilities, enabling effective UX design with underlying architectures that support a dynamic UX. S/he will be responsible for ongoing HUBzero architectural changes and those of major HUBzero applications. Architectural designs also include planning appropriate implementation technologies, including Python, PHP, React.js, Clojure, and other supporting languages and technologies. Additionally the incumbent will act as a liaison between experts in scientific simulation, HPC, middleware, web design, UX, and data science to define architectures that combine all such perspectives to deliver effective client solutions.

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• Bachelor's degree in related area and / or equivalent experience / training

• Ability to understand business needs and how business systems can support those needs. Demonstrated leadership in translating business value into software architectures.

• Knowledge of software, database, infrastructure or other IT function. Knowledge relating to the design and development of software across the organization. In-depth knowledge with multiple types of databases, including SQL, non-SQL, and custom developed solutions and their performance trade-offs and suitability for specific tasks. Strong knowledge and experience with composable service architectures. Significant experience with complex communication between services running on heterogeneous platforms.

• Effective communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to communicate technical information to technical and non-technical personnel at various levels in the organization. Strong experience building trust with external customers even in the face of unforeseen challenges that arise.

• Capable of analyzing detailed usage data to understand the scale implications of rearchitecting existing solutions. Able to incorporate user instrumentation into designs such that usage analysis, scientific impact analysis, and data driven user experiences can be quickly realized.

• Strong ability to translate business needs into long-term architecture solutions. Expertise relating to the design and development of software across the organization. Strong expertise in designing architectures that are targeted at 5 year time frames with software lifetimes that may exceed a decade.

• Demonstrated skills in modular design and capable of compartmentalized reimplementation without wholesale redevelopment. Design skills include producing architectures that minimize disruption to fulfilling business needs during system upgrades. Architectures include planning for implementation technologies, requiring familiarity with and ability to learn technologies such as Python, PHP, Clojure, React.js and others. Is cognizant and plans for the long term viability of the project including implementation technologies that are supportable and have longevity.

• Job offer is contingent upon satisfactory clearance based on Background Check results.

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