South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Vacancies 2022 – Apply For Computational Chemistry Support Scientist: High Performance Computing (HPC) Jobs

About the job:

The CSIR has a vacancy for a Computational Chemistry Support Scientist: HPC in the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), within the National Integrated Cyber-Infrastructure System (NICIS). The incumbent will be responsible to support and maintain a variety of application software packages for a wide range of researchers in the academic, public sector, private sector and internal researchers making use of the CHPC’s high performance computing cluster resources. This position is based in Rosebank, Cape Town.

For more info about the programmes and cluster, please visit https://www.chpc.ac.za; https://nicis.ac.za and https://www.csir.co.za/nextgen-enterprises-and-institutions.

Key responsibilities:

Provide technical support to the CHPC Computational Chemistry (including Molecular Dynamics and Quantum Mechanics) and Drug Discovery users (including software, workflow support, development and/or customization of user job scripts and effective communication with stakeholders) to ensure effective usage of compute platforms;
Support CHPC Research Programmes of Principal Investigators, including monitoring allocations and evaluating Research Programme feedbacks;
Support users of both the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) based clusters at the CHPC with Molecular Dynamics (MD) job submissions and results analyses for a wide range of commercial and open source application software packages;
Compile and install Computational Chemistry/Drug Discovery application software packages on CHPC compute systems;
Test and benchmark Computational Chemistry/Drug Discovery HPC applications software to determine optimum set-up and efficient use at the CHPC with the aim to advise users on best practices in making use of the software;
Compile and maintain a wide variety of software and libraries in a Linux environment (for compilers, MPI libraries, Python, Perl, etc.) on the CHPC compute systems;
Work together with other staff members in implementing user support projects that can assist the development of the Centre;
Provide support, implement and/or participate in activities across all regions of South Africa, and possibly other countries, depending on the need;
Participate in the human capital development, training and outreach events and initiatives of the CHPC to the benefit the users and the broader research community;
Develop and optimise methods to pursue HPC applications research.

Qualifications, skills and experience:

A Master’s degree in computational chemistry or computational drug discovery with at least two years’ experience supporting computational chemistry/drug discovery users on HPC (CPU and GPU) Linux based compute infrastructures;
A Doctoral degree in computational chemistry or computational drug discovery will be advantageous;
Experience with installing, compiling and using both commercial and open-source high-performance computing applications software focused on Computational Chemistry and Drug Discovery;
The following experience are not a prerequisite, but will be advantageous:
Experience in computational molecular docking in protein structures;
Experience with setting up or managing multi-node parallel computing systems;
Experience in developing parallel programmed software;
Experience with Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI);
Experience with supporting users of containerised and/or cloud environments;
Experience with using and maintaining schedulers on HPC systems;
Dedicated experience in supporting Molecular Dynamics (MD) based applications;
Strong Linux operating system competency (including writing of job scripts, bash, and shell scripting, etc.)
Intimate familiarity with the research environment and challenges within South Africa;
Competence with at least one programming language widely used in the research environment, such as Python, R, C, C++ or Fortran;
Ability to teach at a post-graduate level;
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (verbal and written);
A commitment to continuous learning;
All international qualifications require an evaluation report / certificate issued by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA);
A co-appointment for this position with an external institution may be considered upon request.

Closing date: 25 September 2022

PLEASE NOTE THAT FEEDBACK WILL BE GIVEN TO SHORTLISTED CANDIDATES ONLY.

For more info, please email us at Recruitment03@csir.co.za. Please do-not send your application to this mailbox, it is only for inquiries.

The CSIR is an equal opportunity employer. As such, it is committed to the employment Equity Act and will through the filling of this vacancy, give preference to candidates from designated groups in terms of the Employment Equity Act. By applying for this position at the CSIR, the applicant understands, and agrees that the CSIR may solicit a credit and criminal report from registered credit bureau and/or South African Police Services (in relation to positions that requires trust and honesty and/or entail the handling of cash or finances), and may also verify the applicant’s educational qualification and employment history. The CSIR reserves the right to remove the advertisement at any time before the stated closing date and it further reserves the right not to appoint if a suitable candidate is not identified.

About South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR):