Research Cyberinfrastructure Manager

Description

Job Purpose

The Research Cyberinfrastructure Manager will provide technical oversight for the development team within the Research Computing group, overseeing a team including Research Software Engineers (RSEs) working on large-scale data management problems within the institute’s and national cyberinfrastructure as part of the Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC).

The primary focus of this position is day-to-day oversight of the development and integration of the Pelican Platform—a distributed, global-scale platform for delivering data to compute workflows. The manager will work under the group lead to define technical road maps, prioritizing development workflows, and mentoring RSEs to ensure high-quality software engineering practices. While the position provides day-to-day team leadership and technical guidance, it operates within the broader Morgridge ecosystem, collaborating with the PIs who lead major NSF-funded cyberinfrastructure projects such as the Partnership to Advance Throughput Computing (PATh), the Pelican Platform, and the Fabric for AI-Driven Science (FabAID). The ideal candidate will bridge the gap between high-level objectives / architectures and daily software implementation, ensuring the team effectively leverages modern software engineering practices to advance Fearless Science at the Morgridge Institute.

Primary Responsibilities

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Technical Team Leadership

Lead and mentor a team of four RSEs, overseeing the development and implementation of software, including the Pelican Platform. Coordinate daily development workflows, execute project milestones, and ensure code quality and system robustness.

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Strategic Planning & Scoping

Interact with the Research Computing PIs to identify software engineering challenges. Translate architectural designs and principles into actionable technical requirements and plans.

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Project Oversight

Manage projects’ technical roadmap and delivery. Utilize project management and issue-tracking systems (JIRA, GitHub) to organize work, track progress, and communicate status to stakeholders.

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Software Engineering Practices

Improve and enforce best practices for systems development, including testing, code review, and the use of modern CI/CD tooling. Work with the team to enhance productivity, through use of agentic AI or other techniques.

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Cross-Team Coordination: Work with the integration and operations teams to identify and prioritize issues and coordinate rollout of new versions and functionality.

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Stakeholder Communication

Serve as a technical point of contact for external partners and the broader US and international cyberinfrastructure community. Represent the team at relevant technical meetings with external groups.

? Miscellaneous duties as required

Requirements

• To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each primary duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.
• Education and Experience: ? Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, or related fields; Master’s degree preferred.
• ? 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 3+ years in a leadership or senior technical / architectural role, preferably in a research, academic or distributed systems environment.
• ? Demonstrated experience leading or coordinating technical teams.
• ? Experience in utilizing or software [JW1] engineering inside research computing environments (batch, cloud, or HTC/HPC).
• ? Strong background in distributed systems design, architecture, and programming.
• ? Expertise in managing project workflows using issue trackers and version control systems (GitHub/JIRA).
• Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: ? Proven ability to translate complex research goals into concrete software requirements and design documents.
• ? Strong familiarity with modern DevOps/Agile/Scrum development styles.
• ? Familiarity with CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions/Jenkins) and using agentic AI as part of software development.
• ? Ability to mentor and grow the technical skills of junior and mid-level software engineers.
• ? Deep understanding of, or rapid ability to learn, cyberinfrastructure projects and ecosystem (e.g., HTCondor, Pelican).

Working Conditions and Physical Effort

• ? Work is normally performed in a typical office environment.
• ? Day-to-day, no or very limited physical effort is required.
• ? No or very limited exposure to physical risk.