Life Sciences Applications Specialist

The Opportunity
The Pawsey Supercomputing Centre is a tier-1 high-performance computing facility accelerating scientific discoveries for Australia’s researchers. Located in Perth, Western Australia, Pawsey is currently serving scientists across the nation in domains such as radio astronomy, energy and resources, engineering, bioinformatics and health sciences. Pawsey supports Australia’s commitment to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and Australian pathfinder projects (ASKAP and MWA).

• Endless opportunities to grow & develop your career
• Innovative and collaborative workplace with fantastic flexibility
• Join CSIRO and support Australia’s premier scientific organisation!

As the Life Sciences Application Specialist, you will work within the Scientific Services Team. You will work collaboratively with researchers to assist them in exploiting the vast opportunities enabled by the supercomputers operated in the Pawsey centre. A technical aptitude, strong interpersonal skills and a desire to learn are essential to support the researchers and grow with technology. You will participate in defining and building new supercomputing services for the next-generation Pawsey Supercomputing System.

Your duties will include:

• Provide specialist advice and software enhancement to research groups, drawing on extensive knowledge and experience to enable their utilisation at scale of significant supercomputing resources at Pawsey.
• Undertake collaborative projects with researchers, communities, software developers, vendors and other international centres.
• Identify suitable technologies, tools, and algorithms relevant to user activities and encourage adoption to improve the productivity of the research community.
• Develop and deliver specialist training to the Pawsey user community.
• Participate in evaluations of novel systems and technologies to inform the Pawsey infrastructure and services roadmap, and support transition to new systems.
• Undertake technical assessment of applications for computational resources through merit allocation schemes.
• Promote success stories through (for example) conferences, publications, case studies and networking.

Location: Perth (Kensington), WA
Salary: AU$102,724 to AU$111,165 pa (pro-rata for part-time) + up to 15.4% superannuation
Tenure: Indefinite
Reference: 87712

To be considered you will need:

Essential:

• Relevant post graduate qualification or significant progress towards postgraduate qualifications in a computational bioscience discipline; or combination of equivalent relevant work experience and/or education/training.
• Demonstrated expertise in assisting life science researchers to run computational workflows on supercomputing infrastructure.
• Experience in benchmarking, profiling, and debugging life science workflows running on supercomputing infrastructure.
• Demonstrated contributions advancing existing technology or processes leading to enhanced computational and data services in life sciences.
• Demonstrated effective communication skills including the ability to articulate technical concepts to a diverse range of clients.
• The ability to work effectively in a team and carry out tasks autonomously.
• Demonstrated ability & willingness to contribute novel ideas and approaches in support of scientific investigations.

Desirable:

• Demonstrated contributions to symposiums, panel discussions, and events related to the use of high-performance computing for life sciences research.
• Experience in providing technical reviews as part of merit-based application processes at high-performance computing centres.

For full details about this role please review the Position Description

Eligibility
Applications for this position are open to Australian/New Zealand Citizens, Australian Permanent Residents or you must either hold, or be able to obtain, a valid working visa for the duration of the specified term. Appointment to this role is subject to provision of a national police check and may be subject to other security/medical/character requirements.

To enter a CSIRO site, CSIRO will require you to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 (or show a valid medical exemption from vaccination). If you are unable to meet this requirement, then you must return a negative result on a Rapid Antigen Test (within 48 hours prior to attending site) and wear a face mask whilst on the CSIRO site. These requirements apply if you are attending a CSIRO site as part of a recruitment process.

Flexible Working Arrangements
We work flexibly at CSIRO, offering a range of options for how, when and where you work.