HPC Engineer for Earth Sciences applications (RE2)

Job Reference

406_26_ES_CES_RE2

Position

HPC Engineer for Earth Sciences applications (RE2)

Closing Date

Thursday, 03 September, 2026

Reference: 406_26_ES_CES_RE2

Job title: HPC Engineer for Earth Sciences applications (RE2)

About BSC

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is the leading supercomputing center in Spain. It houses MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, was a founding and hosting member of the former European HPC infrastructure PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and is now hosting entity for EuroHPC JU, the Joint Undertaking that leads large-scale investments and HPC provision in Europe. The mission of BSC is to research, develop and manage information technologies in order to facilitate scientific progress. BSC combines HPC service provision and R&D into both computer and computational science (life, earth and engineering sciences) under one roof, and currently has over 1000 staff from 60 countries.

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We are particularly interested for this role in the strengths and lived experiences of women and underrepresented groups to help us avoid perpetuating biases and oversights in science and IT research. In instances of equal merit, the incorporation of the under-represented sex will be favoured.

We promote Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, fostering an environment where each and every one of us is appreciated for who we are, regardless of our differences.

If you consider that you do not meet all the requirements, we encourage you to continue applying for the job offer. We value diversity of experiences and skills, and you could bring unique perspectives to our team.

Context And Mission

Within the Barcelona Supercomputing Center the Earth Sciences Department, led by Prof Francisco Doblas-Reyes, aims to deliver novel, advanced, and well-evaluated high-resolution global climate models capable of simulating and predicting climate estimations with unprecedented reliability. The successful candidate will be part of the Performance Team a sub-group in the section of Computational Earth Sciences.

This team, composed of 22 members but steadily growing, performs R&D tasks in the field of Earth system modelling (ESM) performance: its goal is to identify model bottlenecks and research how to remove them. The team has at its disposal cutting-edge performance tools, able to evaluate and represent different performance metrics. Having identified those areas in the code, the experts in the team proceed to modify them without impacting the final results. Possible solutions can go from using more efficient numerical algorithms to modifying the way the model exploits the HPC infrastructure.

Key Duties

The successful candidate will work on profiling and implementing computational optimizations for Earth Sciences applications running at a very high-resolution configuration using top European HPC platforms.

Lead the CPU Profiling & Optimization Unit, providing technical supervision, direction, and domain oversight to team members across projects.

The candidate will also be involved in developing the department's "common" tools: these include several applications whose interest is shared among different sub-groups in the Earth Sciences department and whose number of users can range from small groups to several institutions.

This position involves close interaction with the Climate Variability and Change (CVC) group and external collaborators/software vendors.

Requirements

Education

Having a Bachelor in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics or related discipline

Having a Master’s degree will be valued

Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience

Excellent computing skills in high-level computer languages (especially Fortran or C/C++) and experience with Unix/Linux environments and scripting languages (Bash, Python, etc)

Programming skills to manage big and collaborative projects and experience with git and/or SVN

Experience in HPC performance and profiling tools such as Intel VTune

Experience in compiling, running and optimizing scientific codes on large HPC systems

Experience in HPC architecture and parallel programming paradigms such as MPI and OpenMP

Experience working with novel architectures and emerging technologies such as RISC-V

Experience or knowledge in the usage and support of Unix- or Linux-based HPC systems

Competences

Excellent problem-solving skills

Proactive attitude

Learning capacity and motivation to maintain a learning progression

Good written and verbal skills and capacity to support Earth and Computational scientists

Fluency in English

Conditions

The position will be located at BSC within the Earth Sciences Department

We offer a full-time contract (35h/week), a good working environment, a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure, flexible working hours, extensive training plan, restaurant tickets, private health insurance, support to the relocation procedures

Duration: Open-ended contract due to technical and scientific activities linked to the project and budget duration

Holidays: 22 days of holidays + 6 personal days + 24th and 31st of December per our collective agreement

Salary: we offer a competitive salary commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate and according to the cost of living in Barcelona

Starting date: ASAP

Applications procedure and process

All applications must be submitted via the BSC website and contain:

A full CV in English including contact details

A cover/motivation letter with a statement of interest in English, clearly specifying for which specific area and topics the applicant wishes to be considered. Additionally, two references for further contacts must be included. Applications without this document will not be considered.

Development of the recruitment process

The selection will be carried out through a competitive examination system ("Concurso-Oposición"). The recruitment process consists of two phases:

Curriculum Analysis: Evaluation of previous experience and/or scientific history, degree, training, and other professional information relevant to the position. - 40 points

Interview phase: The highest-rated candidates at the curriculum level will be invited to the interview phase, conducted by the corresponding department and Human Resources. In this phase, technical competencies, knowledge, skills, and professional experience related to the position, as well as the required personal competencies, will be evaluated. - 60 points. A minimum of 30 points out of 60 must be obtained to be eligible for the position.

The recruitment panel will be composed of at least three people, ensuring at least 25% representation of women.

In accordance with OTM-R principles, a gender-balanced recruitment panel is formed for each vacancy at the beginning of the process. After reviewing the content of the applications, the panel will begin the interviews, with at least one technical and one administrative interview. At a minimum, a personality questionnaire as well as a technical exercise will be conducted during the process.

The panel will make a final decision, and all individuals who participated in the interview phase will receive feedback with details on the acceptance or rejection of their profile.

At BSC, we seek continuous improvement in our recruitment processes. For any suggestions or comments/complaints about our recruitment processes, please contact recruitment [at] bsc [dot] es.

For more information, please follow this link.

Deadline

The vacancy will remain open until a suitable candidate has been hired. Applications will be regularly reviewed and potential candidates will be contacted.

OTM-R principles for selection processes

BSC-CNS is committed to the principles of the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers of the European Commission and the Open, Transparent and Merit-based Recruitment principles (OTM-R). This is applied for any potential candidate in all our processes, for example by creating gender-balanced recruitment panels and recognizing career breaks etc.

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