Head of IT Services (Scientific Computing, HPC, Research)

Head of IT Services (Scientific Computing, HPC, Research, Academic, Biotechnology, transition, infrastructure implementation)

Head of Scientific IT Services (HPC, Research, Academic, Biotechnology, transition, infrastructure implementation)


Sand Resources has an excellent opportunity available for a high calibre Head of IT Services with experience of the academic, research or higher education sector. Candidates have extensive experience of managing complex IT transition projects and have excellent High Performance Computing (HPC) technical skills for a large client based in London.

Head of IT Services Role:

*Responsible for developing, organising, implementing and delivering the scientific computational services at the client site.
*Organise, plan and implement the scientific computing infrastructure hardware and software systems.
*Provide a platform for a phased transition of scientific programs, applications/functions and scientific data from one site to another.
*Understand the requirements of the client's scientific programs to advise on the architecture of the appropriate HPC systems.
*Work with a number of stakeholder organisations to understand codes in use and oversee and advise on identifying, selecting and implementing open source tools, systems management tools, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software packages or bespoke scientific software applications to support the scientific programmes
*Work with the transition teams to ensure the HPC infrastructure implementation and transition programme is completed on time and within budget.
*Determine the appropriate platforms to support the computational scientific programs- such as biochemistry, systems biology, mathematical modelling, and statistical analysis.
*Responsible for business continuity planning, information security and disaster recovery planning.
*Managing a team of up to 25 individuals.
*Manage the IT capital budget in conjunction with the ICT Director and the governance group.
*Establish high level relationships with major vendors to identify appropriate technologies to support the organisation.

Head of IT Services Experience:

*Demonstrable track record of achievements in developing, implementing and managing large enterprise scale HPC scientific computing systems for research, academic or equivalent environments.

*Understanding of general scientific analysis, work-flows, data acquisition, data management and data processing.
*Familiar with as many of the following technologies: open MPI, embarrassingly parallel, cluster file systems (Lustre, GPFS), HPC clusters/farms, GPU, FPGA, numeric and floating point codes for computational sciences.
*Proven track record of building and developing the team responsible for providing high performance scientific computing support services.
*Strong technical knowledge in as many of the following as possible: enterprise scale Linux/MAC/Windows environments, Linux/unix kernel programming, large scale systems and data management, software development and deployment and monitoring technologies e.g. cfengine, puppet, ganglia.
*Experience of Virtualisation and VDI technologies (VMware, Xen, Citrix, Oracle virtual desktop), Cloud applications and cloud development environments (Amazon EC2, Google, CloudStack, public/private and community clouds).
*Candidates should have experience of Software development, high level programming and high level scripting languages.
*Excellent experience of Designing, implementing and managing large scale compute clusters/farms i.e. blade computing clusters and high performance cluster file systems such as Lustre, GPFS or other and familiarity of technologies such as Infiniband and job distribution systems.
*Understanding of image processing, large scale data management in a scientific environment is highly desirable.
*Excellent interpersonal and internal client relationship skills
*Experience in an equivalent role ideally with a large enterprise, academic or research institute.
*Be prepared to travel internationally and form relationships with other similar organisations.



Please send your CV for immediate consideration and a full job description.




Sand Resources is an equal opportunity employer committed to a policy of treating all employees and job applicants equally. It is our aim to take all reasonable steps to employ and promote on the basis of ability and qualifications without regard to race, religion, colour, sex, age, national origin, disability or sexual orientation. Our recruitment takes place based only on skills and experience of the candidates. Sand Resources is acting as an employment agency in relation to this vacancy.