HPC Systems Software Engineer - OpenCHAMI for Lugano or Zürich

The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) develops and operates a high-performance computing and data research infrastructure that supports world-class science in Switzerland. Its user laboratory is available to domestic and international researchers in academia, industry, and the business sector. The centre is operated by ETH Zurich and has offices at its data centre in Lugano and in Zurich.

Project background

Project Overview:

OpenCHAMI stands for Open Composable Heterogeneous Adaptable Management Infrastructure . It is an open source project that provides modern system management and provisioning tools for High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters and supercomputers. The project with limited project financing and therefore limited contract duration aims to bring cloud-like deployment, automation, and security capabilities to HPC environments.

This project with work location either Lugano or Zürich focuses on the development and advancement of OpenCHAMI for CSCS’s next-generation supercomputing infrastructure. The work will contribute to building an open, scalable, and modern approach to cluster management for large-scale High Performance Computing (HPC) systems.
The main objective is to design, develop, integrate, and deploy OpenCHAMI capabilities tailored to the operational requirements of CSCS supercomputers.
The project will address the challenges of managing increasingly complex HPC and AI systems and contribute to the evolution of next-generation open-source cluster management technologies.

What We Value:

We value technical excellence, curiosity, initiative, and the ability to learn and grow over a perfect checklist of skills. Working on next-generation HPC infrastructure requires a willingness to explore new technologies, tackle complex problems, and continuously develop new expertise.
If you are motivated to make a meaningful impact in this area but do not meet every requirement, we strongly encourage you to apply.

The Opportunity:

We offer an initially two-year contract providing the opportunity to work at the forefront of HPC and AI infrastructure at CSCS, contributing directly to the development of technologies that will support future supercomputing systems.
You will have the opportunity to contribute to OpenCHAMI and related open-source initiatives, collaborating with the broader HPC community and contributing to high-impact programs at both the national and international levels, including HPSF, OpenCHAMI, and related initiatives.

This is an opportunity to help shape how future CSCS supercomputers are managed, monitored, and operated, while contributing to open-source technologies with an impact well beyond a single system or institution.

Job description

• Develop and extend OpenCHAMI to meet the infrastructure management and operational requirements of CSCS’s current and next-generation supercomputing systems.
• Contribute to the OpenCHAMI open-source ecosystem, including the development, integration, and evolution of related cluster management services and components.
• Develop automation and management workflows to improve system provisioning, configuration, monitoring, maintenance, and operational efficiency at scale.
• Collaborate closely with HPC operations teams to understand operational requirements and challenges, and translate them into robust, scalable, and maintainable OpenCHAMI-based solutions.
• Contribute to the architecture and evolution of the OpenCHAMI platform, ensuring that solutions are scalable, reliable, maintainable, and aligned with the needs of large-scale HPC and AI systems.
• Participate actively in open-source development workflows, including software design, implementation, testing, code reviews, issue tracking, and technical discussions within the OpenCHAMI community.
• Collaborate with international partners and the broader HPC community to develop and integrate solutions that advance open-source cluster management and infrastructure automation.
• Produce and maintain technical documentation, including architecture designs, implementation guides, operational procedures, and best practices.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and approaches relevant to HPC infrastructure management, observability, and automation, and contribute to their adoption where appropriate.

Profile

We welcome engineers with diverse backgrounds who are eager to contribute to our mission. We are primarily looking for strong technical foundations, sound engineering judgment, and the ability to bridge gaps across domains. Curiosity, adaptability, willingness to learn on the job, and potential to grow matter more to us than a perfect initial match of technical requirements.

The technologies listed below illustrate the breadth of our stack and areas of interest. They are not a checklist of requirements, and experience in only some of these areas is expected.

Technical environment and areas of interest

• Go programming language
• Git and modern software development workflows
• CI/CD pipelines (Gitlab, GitHub, Ansible)
• Container technologies (Docker, Podman)
• Open-source software development
• Testing frameworks, software quality practices, and DevOps/GitOps approaches

Personal qualities:

• Self-motivated, proactive, focused and collaborative
• Strong problem-solving mindset and comfortable tackling complex or ambiguous problems
• Clear communicator with a strong sense of user needs
• Open to learning new technologies and working across disciplines
• Comfortable asking for help and engaging the right expertise when needed

Ways of working:

• Ability to thrive in collaborative, self-organizing environments inspired by Agile principles
• Experience with structured development practices such as test-driven development is a plus

Our core values as guiding principles:

• Curiosity: You enjoy learning, exploring new ideas, and understanding problems deeply.
• Openness: You listen, collaborate, and are receptive to different perspectives.
• Courage: You tackle challenging or ambiguous problems and are willing to take initiative.
• Supportiveness: You help colleagues and users succeed and contribute to a positive team culture.
• Integrity: You act honestly, ethically, and reliably in your work.

We offer

• We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive engineering team and particularly encourage applications from from groups underrepresented in tech. If you are technically strong, curious, and eager to grow, we want to hear from you.
• At CSCS, being family-friendly is much more than a label. We provide flexible and supportive working conditions that help employees manage both their careers and family responsibilities. For example, one of our Lugano buildings hosts a childcare facility, and we financially support up to three weeks of summer camp for primary school children. If your child is sick and you need assistance, we will even cover the cost of in-home childcare for our Lugano based employees. We are proud to be a genuinely family-friendly employer and are committed to supporting our employees when they need it most.
• You can look forward to an exciting working environment, cultural diversity and attractive offers and benefits.
• We value the diversity of our team and, to further enhance the diversity of our workforce, we particularly encourage women to apply.

We value diversity and sustainability

In line with our values , ETH Zurich encourages an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity and nurture a working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our Equal Opportunities and Diversity website to find out how we ensure a fair and open environment that allows everyone to grow and flourish. Sustainability is a core value for us – we are consistently working towards a climate-neutral future .

About ETH Zürich

ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specialising in science and technology. We are renowned for our excellent education, cutting-edge fundamental research and direct transfer of new knowledge into society. Over 30,000 people from more than 120 countries find our university to be a place that promotes independent thinking and an environment that inspires excellence. Located in the heart of Europe, yet forging connections all over the world, we work together to develop solutions for the global challenges of today and tomorrow.

Please include the following documents with your application:

• Motivation letter
• CV
• Relevant certificates and diplomas in pdf format

We look forward to receiving your online application, including a letter of motivation, CV, diplomas, and employment certificates. Please address your application to Mrs Stephanie Frequente, CSCS Human Resources, Via Trevano 131, 6900 Lugano.

Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via email or postal services will not be considered.

Further information about CSCS can be found on our website . Questions regarding the position should be directed to Nur Fadel, Visualizzare la mail su jobs.nzz.ch (no applications).

For recruitment services, the GTC of ETH Zurich apply.