Platform Engineer (HPC / High Performance Computing) - #1714207

Genomics England partners with the NHS to provide whole genome sequencing diagnostics. We also equip researchers to find the causes of disease and develop new treatments – with patients and participants at the heart of it all.

Our mission is to continue refining, scaling, and evolving our ability to enable others to deliver genomic healthcare and conduct genomic research.

We are accelerating our impact and working with patients, doctors, scientists, government and industry to improve genomic testing, and help researchers access the health data and technology they need to make new medical discoveries and create more effective, targeted medicines for everybody.

As an experienced AWS HPC Platform Engineer with a proven track record, you’ll confidently lead the implementation of AWS best practices across a team of engineers who are developing their expertise in AWS platform engineering. You’ll support the live service HPC cluster in AWS, ensuring stability and performance, and work closely with our infrastructure architect while focusing on core cloud-related operational activities.

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership & Mentorship

• Lead, guide and mentor a team of engineers to enhance their AWS platform engineering skills

• Promote AWS best practices and drive automation standards within the team

HPC Cluster Support

• Maintain and optimise the live service HPC cluster in AWS

• Collaborate with our Infrastructure Architect to ensure architectural alignment and effective implementation

Data Platform & Tools Support

• Manage and support tools that ingest data, including LSF RTM, Athena databases, and workflows

• Ensure seamless integration and performance of these tools within AWS

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Alignment

• Work with the Infrastructure Architect to align on IaC strategies, utilising Ansible Tower and GitLab Pipelines for both AWS and on-prem environments

Benchmarking & Healthchecks

• Develop and integrate standardised benchmarking and healthchecks for the HPC, leveraging AWS capabilities

IOPS Monitoring Tool Integration

• Support the rollout and integration of IOPS monitoring tools (Mistrel/Breeze) in AWS

• Ensure these tools are effectively connected to both on-prem and AWS HPC environments

Cost Optimisation

• Implement strategies for cost optimisation of the AWS stack in HPC

Vulnerability Patching

• Develop creative solutions for vulnerability patching of the AWS stack in HPC, particularly for large EC2 instances

S3 Integration

• Support the integration of S3 into Double Helix to provide more cloud storage options

DRAGEN F2 Integration

• Design and support the use of DRAGEN F2 within GEL, including necessary AMIs

• Deep, hands-on experience with building compute families (GPUs, CPUs) using cloud services.

• Fluency in data storage services (S3, mount-point, data lakes, Lustre).

• Expertise in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform and CI/CD pipelines with GitLab.

• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to see the bigger picture.

• Excellent teamwork and communication skills.

Salary from: £71,500Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we’re continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including:

• Generous Leave: 30 days’ holiday plus bank holidays, additional leave for long service, and the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
• Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
• Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), and a Give As You Earn scheme.
• Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required).
• Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme.
• Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.

Equal opportunities and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace

Genomics England is actively committed to providing and supporting an inclusive environment that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion best practice both within our community and in any other area where we have influence. We are proud of our diverse community where everyone can come to work and feel welcomed and treated with respect regardless of any disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social background.

Genomics England’s policies of non-discrimination and equity and will be applied fairly to all people, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, being pregnant or recently becoming a parent, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, length of service, whether full or part-time or employed under a permanent or a fixed-term contract or any other relevant factor.

Genomics England does not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, victimisation or bullying at work. Such behaviour is contrary to our virtues, undermines our mission and core values and diminishes the dignity, respect and integrity of all parties. Our People policies outline our commitment to inclusivity.

We aim to remove barriers in our recruitment processes and to be flexible with our interview processes. Should you require any adjustments that may help you to fully participate in the recruitment process, we encourage you to discuss this with us.

Blended working model

Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility that hybrid working can bring. We expect most people to come into the office a minimum of 2 times each month. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. There is no expectation that people will return to the office full time unless they want to, however, some of our roles require full time on site attendance e.g., lab teams, reception team.

Our teams and squads have, and will continue to reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum. Our office locations are: Canary Wharf, Cambridge and Leeds.

Onboarding background checks

As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare.