Job Description

We have an excellent opportunity for a Computational Scientist to apply their knowledge and expertise to contribute towards a variety of support, research and developmental activities within all levels of our High-Performance Computing software and hardware. This role will offer the successful candidate excellent career progression opportunities and regular access to computing platforms that only a handful of sites in the UK can offer!

Potential opportunity for hybrid working

As part of our People Promise, AWE (one of the best 25 big companies to work for in the UK) has a range of benefits to suit you. These include:

• Time to recharge your batteries with 270 hours of annual leave (plus every other Friday off work)
• Consideration for flexible working arrangements so that your work may fit in with your lifestyle. Just let us know on your application if you wish to work part time
• Opportunities for Professional Career Development that include funding for the annual membership of a relevant professional body, access to mentors and training
• Employee Assistance Programme and Occupational Health Services
• A generous defined contribution Group Personal Pension (we will pay between 9% and 13% of your pensionable pay depending on your own contribution)
• Life Assurance
• Discounts - access to savings on a wide range of everyday spending
• Special Leave Policy including paid time off for volunteering, public service (including reserve forces) and caring for your family
• A host of voluntary & core benefits to suit your health and wellbeing - more information available on our careers site

The role:

Successful candidates will gain first-hand experience of working in the vibrant field of HPC motivated by multi-physics science problems. The HPC group provides scientific computing support to the user community at AWE with significant HPC real estate at its disposal. In addition, there exists multiple small development platforms with novel architectures that are routinely used for code porting and research related activities. The role will involve interacting with code scientists and system administrators to contribute to a variety of support, research, and development activities within HPC

Our software stack varies ranging from low level machine code to high level languages such as Python and everything in between. The hardware infrastructure includes Linux workstation deployments to supercomputer blades with direct liquid cooling. Our core network infrastructures are purpose built to deal with very large data packets generated by our supercomputers that you are unlikely to find in other commercial organisations in the UK.

Key Responsibilities:

• Providing appropriate assistance for porting specific codes to new platforms
• Designing, coding, testing, installing, and maintaining software modules
• Producing suitable online documentation
• Interacting with vendors, universities, and US laboratories on leading-edge research
• Research level investigation of advanced novel techniques for solution of multi-physics problems
• Developing relevant benchmarks for assessing current and future systems
• Maintaining an awareness of current and future developments in the HPC field

The successful candidate will have a degree coupled with industrial experience in Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, or other numerate discipline (a post graduate qualification (MSc/PhD), or equivalent experience, is highly desirable).

In addition to this, candidates would benefit from having any the following:

• The ability to programme in C, C++, Fortran, or a similar high-level language
• Knowledge of computer architectures, in particular parallel architectures, and their applicability to running large scientific calculations
• Familiarity with parallel programming concepts (including accelerators such as GPUs) and software development life cycles
• An interest in processing technologies: software, hardware, and algorithms together with their use and application
• Experience of using debuggers and performance analysis tools would be advantageous
• Knowledge of open-source software
• Experience of working in Unix/Linux environment
• Ability to capture software requirements and produce appropriate implementations
• Software testing experience
• Familiarity with scripting languages - e.g., bash, python
• Ability to write in clear and concise language on technical matters and summarise and present such material effectively

Candidates must be willing and able to obtain and maintain the necessary security clearance for the role.

Atomic Weapons Establishment