HPC Linux System Administrator

At NASA's Johnson Space Center, the Flight Sciences Laboratory (FSL) is the computing backbone behind nearly every major human spaceflight program - ISS, Orion, SLS, Commercial Crew, Lunar Gateway, and the Human Landing System: 700+ machines, 26,000 cores, 10+ petabytes of storage, 1,000+ users. MRI Technologies, supporting NASA under the JETS II contract, is hiring an HPC Linux System Administrator to help run and improve that cluster - a hands-on, on-premises HPC role administering the job scheduler and parallel filesystem, supporting containerized HPC workflows and CI/CD (including Jacamar), and working directly with the scientists and engineers behind NASA's human spaceflight mission. This is not a public-cloud, DevOps-only, or Kubernetes-only position.

Your HPC experience doesn't have to say "NASA" on it. Another NASA center, a national lab, a university/research computing center, or another government agency all count - and your title doesn't have to have been "System Administrator." We want someone who'll bring fresh ideas from wherever they've been.

Based in Houston, TX at NASA Johnson Space Center - fully remote considered for the right candidate with strong, demonstrated HPC experience.

What We Are Looking For

Required - Core HPC Experience (Must Have)

• Hands-on, production experience ADMINISTERING an HPC job scheduler (Slurm, PBS/Torque, or LSF) - a hard requirement, not a preference. This means administering the scheduler itself (queue/partition configuration, accounting, troubleshooting job failures), not just submitting jobs to one.
• Hands-on, production experience ADMINISTERING a high-speed parallel filesystem (Lustre or GPFS) - also a hard requirement. General NAS/SAN/NFS storage administration does not substitute for this.
• Minimum 5 years of Linux system administration in an on-premises, bare-metal, or cluster/research-computing environment. Cloud-only or DevOps-only backgrounds (e.g., managing EC2/AKS/EKS without on-prem HPC cluster experience) do not meet this requirement.

Required - General

• Typically requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent certification in a related field, with a minimum of 5 years of experience
• Experience using containers in an HPC context - packaging and running user environments (including older OS or older package versions) on a shared cluster rather than for traditional microservices
• Experience building and supporting CI/CD workflows, ideally tied to HPC clusters and run nodes
• System configuration management experience
• Experience with monitoring and alerting systems
• Demonstrated problem-solving, planning, and communication skills
• Ability to work effectively in a team environment
• Must be able to provide proof of U.S. Citizenship or U.S. Permanent Residency and complete a U.S. government background investigation (required for this NASA contract - see Important Information below).

Preferences

• Experience with RedHat-based Linux distributions
• Familiarity with InfiniBand high-speed networking
• Experience with provisioning tools (xCAT, Warewulf)
• Experience with Ansible and/or Foreman for configuration management
• Familiarity with SPACK software package manager
• Experience with log consolidation, monitoring, and Git/GitLab (including CI/CD pipelines)
• Familiarity with Jacamar (https://gitlab.com/ecp-ci/jacamar-ci) or comparable tooling for running CI/CD jobs against HPC clusters and run nodes
• Experience applying AI in a sysadmin role - integrating AI tooling into operational workflows, automation, and user-facing HPC jobs
• MPI workflow and administration experience (e.g., Open MPI, MPICH, Intel MPI)
• Package management and environment modules experience (e.g., Lmod/Environment Modules, SPACK, EasyBuild)
• Knowledge of NASA security mechanisms (security plans, POAMs, ATOs, Risk Assessments)

This position has been posted at multiple levels. Depending on your experience and business needs, we may consider candidates at any level for which the position is advertised.

Benefits and Perks

We offer a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance, paid time off, and 401(k). You'll also enjoy a 9/80 work schedule (every other Friday off, when applicable),and the chance to work in one of JSC's most critical computing environments supporting human spaceflight.

MRI Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

As we are a Federal Contractor, most positions require the employee to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government background investigation. MRI also completes a pre-screening background check for anyone offered employment.