Senior DevOps Engineer – HPC / EDA / SLURM

Location: Remote
Duration: 3 Months
Experience: 5+ Years
Employment Type: Contract

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior DevOps Engineer to support a High Performance Computing (HPC) and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) infrastructure team on a 3-month contract engagement. This role will work closely with the IT Datacenter organization and requires a highly experienced engineer who can operate independently with minimal ramp-up time.

The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on expertise in Linux HPC environments, SLURM, Ansible, infrastructure automation, enterprise identity management, storage, and datacenter migrations.

Key Responsibilities

HPC / EDA Platform Operations

• Administer and support SLURM-based HPC compute environments, including partition configuration and migration planning.
• Plan and execute HPC/EDA compute and storage infrastructure migrations across datacenters.
• Develop migration strategies, assess risks and dependencies, and define operational trade-offs.
• Create formal Method of Procedure (MOP) documents, implementation plans, and operational runbooks.
• Coordinate with EDA/SPE, storage, identity, and infrastructure teams to execute platform changes.
• Validate storage volumes, application access, authentication, and service continuity following migrations.
• Define HPC storage service tiers and gather performance and capacity requirements for EDA workloads.

Linux Systems Engineering

• Administer production SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 and SLES 15 environments.
• Build and maintain custom Linux OS images and installation media using Kiwi NG.
• Support bare-metal provisioning using RackN / Digital Rebar Provision and PXE-based deployment.
• Provision and configure VMware vSphere virtual machines supporting HPC services.
• Troubleshoot Linux services, system daemons, operational scripts, and production issues.

Automation & Infrastructure as Code

• Develop and maintain Ansible playbooks and roles for Linux configuration, authentication, and platform automation.
• Ensure compatibility across multiple SLES versions.
• Manage infrastructure code through Git/GitHub and maintain artifacts through Artifactory.
• Participate in pull requests, code reviews, and inner-source infrastructure development.
• Manage production changes through ServiceNow change-management processes.

Identity & Access Management

• Configure and integrate enterprise identity technologies including:
  • Okta
  • Active Directory
  • LDAP
  • NIS
  • VAS
  • SSSD
• Audit and reconcile Linux user/group information, including UID/GID mappings.
• Troubleshoot authentication and access issues across HPC compute and storage environments.
• Extend SSSD-based corporate authentication to new compute environments.

Monitoring & Operational Support

• Evaluate and implement log-management solutions, including Splunk integration.
• Troubleshoot production services such as VNC, NIS, AutoFS, Zabbix, and related Linux services.
• Develop technical documentation, architecture diagrams, implementation guides, and end-user documentation using Confluence.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in DevOps, Platform Engineering, Linux Systems Engineering, or a related role.
• Hands-on experience administering HPC clusters using SLURM or comparable workload managers.
• Experience supporting EDA, scientific computing, semiconductor, or high-performance engineering environments.
• Strong production experience with Ansible, including playbook and role development.
• Experience with bare-metal provisioning tools such as RackN / Digital Rebar, Cobbler, or equivalent.
• Proven experience planning and executing datacenter or infrastructure migrations.
• Strong understanding of enterprise Linux authentication and identity technologies, including SSSD, LDAP, Active Directory, NIS, or Okta.
• Experience with NetApp or comparable enterprise storage platforms in HPC environments.
• Ability to create detailed MOPs, runbooks, architecture diagrams, and technical documentation.
• Strong communication skills and ability to coordinate across multiple technical teams.

Required Technical Skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Enterprise experience with SLES 12 and SLES 15.
• Hands-on experience with RackN / Digital Rebar Provision.
• Experience creating custom OS images using Kiwi NG or similar tools.
• VMware vSphere experience supporting HPC infrastructure.
• Experience migrating large configuration artifacts and binaries to Artifactory.
• Background in semiconductor, storage, EDA, or high-tech manufacturing IT environments.
• Experience with enterprise-scale infrastructure modernization and migration programs.