Junior HPC Applications Engineer

About the Company

Parallel Works builds and operates ACTIVATE, a control plane for high performance computing and AI. Our customers run large scientific and AI workloads across their own on-premises clusters, Government and commercial cloud, and commercial GPU providers, and ACTIVATE provides a unified interface for all of them. The platform is authorized at Impact Level 5 with FIPS-validated cryptography and STIG hardening. Our work supports fields such as weather and climate forecasting, defense and intelligence, aerospace, molecular and materials science, energy, and AI research. Engineers at Parallel Works engage directly with users to solve problems from initial report to final fix—what we call mission engineering.

About the Role

Parallel Works is hiring a Junior HPC Applications Engineer to support researchers and engineers running workloads on our platforms. This role focuses on first-line support, addressing build failures, batch script issues, environment problems, and initial job failure diagnosis. It is ideal for someone with experience running scientific or machine-learning workloads on clusters who wants to transition into a support engineering role. The position involves working across on-premises clusters, cloud, and commercial GPU providers, where the same question may require different solutions depending on the environment.

Responsibilities

• First-line support: own incoming tickets, reproduce problems, resolve what you can, and escalate the rest with a diagnosis.
• Batch scripts: write, debug, and tune Slurm submission scripts with users, including GPU requests, array jobs, and resource sizing.
• Environments and modules: build and install user-requested software under senior review, and maintain module and container environments.
• Onboarding: guide new users through access, storage layout, and first jobs when a cluster comes online.
• Documentation: create user guides and FAQ entries to reduce repeat tickets.
• Coverage rotation: participate in a support coverage rotation, including occasional engagements outside standard United States business hours, agreed upon in advance.

Requirements

• 2 or more years supporting users on Linux systems, or running scientific or machine learning workloads on a cluster as a practitioner.
• Comfort on the Linux command line, including building software from source.
• Experience writing and debugging batch scripts under Slurm, PBS, or LSF.
• Proficiency with Python, plus either a machine learning framework or a domain scientific code.
• Ability to write clear, complete answers to users in plain language.

You do not need every item on this list. If you have most of it and work well with others, apply.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Spack, EasyBuild, or Lmod.
• Multi-GPU or multi-node job experience.
• Use of containers such as Apptainer, Singularity, or Docker.
• Exposure to profiling or debugging tools.
• Graduate coursework, a research computing background, or experience on a university or laboratory HPC help desk.

Benefits

• Medical, vision, and dental coverage.
• 401(k) with company match.
• Short-term disability.
• Generous paid vacation and sick time.