TITLE: Scientific Compute Principal Engineer

LOCATION: Bellevue, WA

TerraPower is a nuclear technology company based in Bellevue, Washington. At its core, the company is working to raise living standards globally through a more affordable, secure and environmentally friendly form of nuclear energy along with innovations in medical isotopes to improve human health. In 2006, TerraPower originated with Bill Gates and a group of like-minded visionaries who evaluated the fundamental challenges to raising living standards around the world.

They recognized energy access was crucial to the health and economic well-being of communities and decided that the private sector needed to take action and create energy sources that would advance global energy deployment. TerraPower’s mission is to be a world leader in new nuclear technologies, while developing innovators and future leaders in the nuclear field. As a result, the company’s activities in the fields of nuclear energy and related sciences are yielding significant innovations in the safety and economics of nuclear power, hybrid energy and medical applications – all for significant human health benefits.

TerraPower is seeking to hire highly motivated and forward-thinking professionals who are interested in focusing on advanced nuclear reactor research and development and influencing change within the nuclear power landscape and bringing forward the critical production of medical isotopes. TerraPower is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religious creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected Veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. In addition, as a federal contractor, TerraPower has instituted an Affirmative Action Plan (AAP) in an effort to proactively recruit, hire, and promote women, minorities, disabled persons and veterans.

Scientific Compute Engineer Principal

The Scientific Compute Principal Engineer is responsible for partnering with internal customers who are leveraging complex advanced physics and engineering applications for research purposes, with the goal to provide a best-in-class end-user experience through resilient, capable platforms and solutions. Role will provide technical oversight for the infrastructure requirements, technical support, vendor management and training provided to users of these resources for advanced nuclear research.

This position requires a candidate who will promote collaboration and cooperation while working across engineering disciplines. Candidate should be familiar with advanced physics and engineering applications and current on how they are deployed and leveraged at enterprise scale. Bring your industry, research expertise and deep knowledge of the “state-of-the-art” in your field to challenge existing assumptions and introduce new approaches and processes.

Responsibilities

• Assess technology needs and guide, influence and inspire adoption of enterprise compute technologies.
• Track the health of critical science pipelines and workflows that depend on our infrastructure.
• Determine the dependencies, bottlenecks, and hurdles that must be addressed to achieve operational excellence and work with TerraPower team and external entities to achieve excellence.
• Partner with Principal System Engineer to define and execute roadmaps. Assist with gathering data for new feature, system, and/or advanced computing requirements from key stakeholders. Provide timely estimates for implementation delivery. Anticipate risks when planning and defining mitigation options.
• Proactively collaborate across discipline groups for efficient use of company expertise, including hardware, software, and algorithms. Work across teams to ensure effective decisions and execution. Document work to leverage results more easily across teams.
• Provide technical leadership and expertise to TerraPower’s advanced computing user community in the computational aspects of their research through intensive consulting, training, and general support activities, all aiming at integrating technologies into research.
• Connect with experts internally. Create understanding within team to foster collaboration. Acquire expert knowledge. Apply advanced concepts to influence feature needs and drive action toward solutions. Seek out most recent advancements (e.g., technologies, processes, literature) relevant to TerraPower’s work, with supporting analysis and benchmarking.
• Respond to user queries regarding computing resources.
• Conduct self-guided research on topics relevant to advanced computing research.
• Participate in mentoring, training, and development of advanced computing users and employees. Assist in the installation/maintenance of advanced computing software on various operating systems.
• Aid in the development of ad-hoc programs for internal customers of advanced computing resources.
• Develop standards and oversee the implementation of procedures to facilitate research on advanced computing research resources.
• Update the research-computing knowledge base to keep our users aware of the latest technologies

Key Qualifications and Skills

• 4-6 years of experience base building, maintaining, and supporting a large-scale scientific computing environment.
• Degree in technical discipline, scientific or engineering fields preferred with six to ten years’ experience in advanced computing operations that includes aspects of leadership and mentorship.
• Preference for a Ph.D. degree in Physics, Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Applied Mathematics or an equivalent highly technical field.
• Experience working on or supporting advanced nuclear research.
• Understanding of systems engineering principles and processes with a focus on high-performance computing (HPC) and clustered compute resources.
• Experience with building and deploying containerized, GPU-enabled applications in Docker, Singularity, or Kubernetes a plus.
• Proficiency in programming language such as Python, Fortran, C++, or R with the ability to learn others as required.
• Proficient in using the Linux/Windows operating systems.
• Ability to multi-task and work cooperatively with others
• The successful candidate will possess a high degree of trust and integrity, communicate openly and effectively and display respect with a desire to foster teamwork.

Job Functions

Job Functions are physical actions and/or working conditions associated with the position. These functions may also constitute essential functions for the job which the employee must be able to fulfill, with or without accommodation. Information provided below is to help describe the job so that the applicant has a reasonable understanding of the job duties/expectations. An applicant's ability to perform and/or tolerate these actions and conditions will be discussed and workplace accommodations may be made on a case-by-case basis following an individualized assessment of the applicant and other considerations, including but not limited to any governing safety standards.

• Motor Abilities: Sitting and/or standing for extended periods, bending/stooping, grasping/gripping, fine motor control (hands)
• Physical exertion and/or requirements: Minimal, with ability to safely lift up to 25 pounds
• Repetitive work: Prolonged
• Special Senses: Visual and audio focused work
• Work Conditions: Stairs, typing/keyboard, standard and/or sitting working environment of >8 hrs./day
• Travel required: 0-5%

TerraPower’s technology is controlled for export by various agencies of the U.S. Government. TerraPower must evaluate applicants who are foreign nationals (other than asylees, refugees, or lawful permanent residents) in accordance with U.S. Government export control requirements. To facilitate TerraPower’s export control reviews, you will be asked as part of the application process to identify whether you are a U.S. Citizen or national, asylee, refugee, or lawful permanent resident of the United States. Government export authorization approval times vary. Based on the business needs for a particular position, TerraPower may not consider a foreign national from a country if it is impracticable to obtain timely Government export approval.

Job details

Salary Range Level 12: $157,405 - $218,119 Salary Range Level 13: $179,892 - $258,594

*Typically, our employee salaries are within .90 – 1.0 of the mid-point of the posted salary band. Any salary offered within the posted salary band is based on market data and commensurate with the selected individual’s qualifications and experience. This range is specific to Washington State.

Job Type: Full-time

Benefits:

• Competitive Compensation
• Salary, eligible to participate in discretionary short-term incentive payments
• Comprehensive Medical and Wellness Benefits
• Medical
• Vision
• Dental
• Life
• Life and Disability
• Gender Affirmation Benefits
• Parental Leave
• 401k Plan
• Generous Paid Time Off (PTO)
• 21 days of annually accrued PTO
• Generous Holiday Schedule
• 10 paid holidays
• Relocation Assistance
• Professional and Educational Support Opportunities
• Flexible Work Schedule

TerraPower Career and Benefits information: https://www.terrapower.com/contact-us/careers/