Job Reference
605_25_OP_US
Position
High-Performance Computing Application Support specialist
Closing Date
Saturday, 15 November, 2025
Reference: 605_25_OP_US
Job title: High-Performance Computing Application Support specialist
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
Are you passionate about technology, Linux systems, and high-performance computing? Do you want to be part of a leading supercomputing center in Europe? Look no further The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is seeking a talented individual to join our Operations Department as a High-Performance Computing User Support specialist.
Supercomputers are indispensable tools for solving the most challenging and complex scientific and technological problems through simulations. This position will be integrated into the operations department within the User Support team. The team will work on applications support for the most relevant projects asking for BSC resources, including performance optimization support, code porting, improvement of the scalability and performance of selected European scientific applications and tools towards Exascale and GPU computing optimization.
BSC hosts one of the biggest supercomputers in Europe within the framework of EUROHPC joint undertaking. The pre-exascale machine hosted by BSC is named MareNostrum 5 and has more than 205 PFlops sustained. The HPC support team will have a direct role improving the usage of this machine.
Key Duties
* Optimize and adapt scientific application codes to new pre-exascale architectures
* Improve the performance of existing parallel codes, improving the serial efficiency and the scalability, changing if necessary the code or helping the developers with their required modifications.
* Generate performance analysis and benchmarks for selected applications and report the results to the application developers.
* Collaborate with other functional groups at the European and International levels on technical matters related to supporting scientific application work.
* Help the HPC users to run their codes in an efficient way and support the research teams to adapt their codes to new machines.
Requirements
* Education
* Bachelor in Computer Science or related discipline
* Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
* At least 1 year of experience in a similar position working with HPC codes
* Experience using performance analysis tools, and parallel debuggers.
* Experience supporting and collaborating with external partners.
* Previous expertise in working with parallel programming models (MPI, OpenMP, ...)
* Good understanding of Linux environment and Shell scripting.
* Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
* Experience analyzing and testing different high-performance computing architectures.
* Good level on English
* Competences
* Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to be able to work within a team to complete tasks on schedule.
* Analytical problem-solving ability.
Conditions
* The position will be located at BSC within the Operations Department
* We offer a full-time contract (37.5h/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: 23 paid vacation days plus 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.
BSC-CNS is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We are pleased to consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or any other basis protected by applicable state or local law.
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This position is reserved for candidates who meet the requirements and have the legal status of disabled persons with a degree of disability equal to or greater than 33%. In case there are no applicants with disabilities that meet the requirements, the rest of the candidates without declared disability will be evaluated.