Scientific Platform Engineer
Harvard University18 days ago
Remote, United States or Boston, MA, USASenior
Responsibilities
- Design and implement CI pipelines for scientific software across Linux and macOS.
- Develop regression and smoke test harnesses for packaged software and safely support fast-moving development branches.
- Define and enforce reproducible build contracts, dependency tracking, version control, deterministic rebuilds, artifact integrity, and metadata tracking.
- Harden the SBGrid runtime wrapper system through testing, versioning discipline, feature flags, and safer rollout mechanisms.
- Improve logging, observability, error classification, dashboards, and structured signals for build failures and common error states.
- Encode operational workflows into internal systems to reduce reliance on tribal knowledge.
- Contribute to the modernization, reliability, security, and engineering evolution of the scientific software platform.
Requirements
- At least five years of relevant experience in platform engineering, systems engineering, DevOps, build/release engineering, research-computing infrastructure, or a closely related area.
- At least two years of professional software development experience.
- Five years of post-secondary education or relevant work experience.
- Experience with CI/CD systems such as GitLab CI or GitHub Actions.
- Experience with an infrastructure-as-code tool such as Ansible, Puppet, Chef, or Terraform.
- Comfort with Linux internals and Bash scripting.
- Experience debugging cross-platform build or runtime issues.
- Solid programming skills in at least one interpreted language, with Python preferred; JavaScript and Ruby are examples.
- Experience with HPC environments or research computing.
- Familiarity with containerization using Docker, Singularity/Apptainer, or similar tools.
- Experience with artifact signing or software supply-chain tooling.
- Preferred bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related technical field.
- Experience in regulated or compliance-sensitive environments and interest in scientific research software ecosystems are preferred.
Benefits
- One-year term position from the date of hire, with possible extension contingent on performance and continued funding.
- Fully remote work arrangement, with occasional on-site attendance potentially required and work performed from a Harvard-registered state.
- Remote employees must be available during Eastern Standard Time business hours.
- Standard schedule is 35 hours per week.
- Generous paid time off, including parental leave.
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage beginning on day one.
- Retirement plans with university contributions.
- Wellbeing and mental health resources.
- Family and caregiver support.
- Professional development opportunities, including tuition assistance and reimbursement.
- Commuter benefits, discounts, and campus perks.