Research IT Infrastructure Architect at National Radio Astronomy Observatory – Green Bank, West Virginia

Position Description:

Position Summary

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is an exciting and prestigious research facility that plays a vital role in the study of the universe. The Observatory operates a variety of radio telescopes that span the globe, including the famous Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) across North America, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. These telescopes are among the most advanced in the world, allowing astronomers to explore the universe in unprecedented detail.

The NRAO is seeking a Research IT infrastructure Architect to join the Data Management and Software department (DMS). In collaboration with the observatory's software architect and data architect, and coordination with our network, data center and Science IT teams, help design and implement the technical infrastructure needed to meet the challenges of the next generation of radio telescopes.

This position ideally will be based either in Albuquerque, NM, or Socorro, NM but could also be based at our Charlottesville, VA or Green Bank, WV locations. For well qualified candidates, a remote work arrangement may be considered after one year of employment.

What You Will be Doing

The primary focus of this position will be to provide strategic and architectural leadership for the technology ecosystem that enables our scientific mission. This role works in conjunction with the software and data architects to define the long-term technical direction for research computing, scientific software systems, data pipelines, and large-scale processing environments.

Operating collaboratively across Platform Engineering, Networking, HPC, and Software Engineering teams, the Research IT Infrastructure Architect ensures that mission systems are interoperable, scalable, sustainable, and aligned with institutional strategy.

This position does not own operational IT functions; rather, it establishes architectural vision, technical standards, and cross-domain integration principles that guide execution across multiple organizations. Immediate activities may include (but are not limited to):

• Develop and maintain a multi-year architectural roadmap for IT infrastructure of research systems.
• Define reference architectures for scientific computing, data lifecycle management, and
• processing pipelines.
• Evaluate emerging technologies for applicability to mission-scale science.
• Align research technology direction with institutional strategy and major initiatives.
• Serve as the integrative architect across:
  • HPC environments
  • Cloud and on-premises platforms
  • Data archives and pipelines
  • Networking and data transport systems
• Works collaboratively to ensure architectural coherence across independently managed teams.
• Lead system-level design reviews for major initiatives.
• Establish engineering standards and architectural principles.
• Provide technical risk assessment for new mission initiatives.
• Define lifecycle sustainability models for research platforms.
• Promote reproducibility, scalability, and interoperability across systems.
• Work laterally with:
  • Platform Engineering leadership
  • Network Engineering leadership
  • HPC leadership
  • Scientific Software Engineering teams
• Translate scientific requirements into architectural direction.
• Serve as technical advisor to scientific and executive leadership.
• Anticipate scaling challenges for next-generation instruments and data rates and guide technology decisions with 10–20 year lifecycle implications.
• Balance innovation against operational stability and cost realism.

Additional duties include:

• the maintenance and necessary upgrades of the existing software to support operations
• the development of new products to meet the challenges posed by the new observing paradigms necessary for the Observatory to remain at the cutting edge of science and technology.

Work Environment

The successful candidate will join a team of professionals engaged in research and development in the fields of science, engineering, software development, and education. Work is typically performed in a research or development environment. While performing the duties of this job, the employee frequently sits at a desk, uses a personal computer, telephone, and other standard office equipment; the ability to climb stairs is required. The employee is required to bend, reach, and must have finger dexterity. The employee is required to lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, color vision, and ability to adjust focus. May occasionally work at high altitudes.

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Who You Are:

• You have a Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field is required or equivalent combination of education and experience. An advanced degree in computer science, engineering, computational science, or related discipline preferred; highly relevant experience may be considered in lieu of a Bachelor's degree.
• You have at least six years of infrastructure architect experience designing large-scale distributed systems to those of the Observatory is required.
  • Demonstrated expertise in high-performance computing, large-scale scientific data processing, distributed systems architecture, and research or mission-critical environments. Proven ability to influence senior technical leaders without formal authority. Requires strong interpersonal and communications skills
  • Experience in federally funded or FFRDC environments strongly preferred.

Competency Summary

The successful candidate must have a strong understanding of HPC technologies, networking, storage, data center design and capacity planning, and be able to help make, communicate and plan technology and implementation choices in the service of projects that are much more computationally ambitious than our current implementations.

The successful candidate should have experience with:

• Cluster design, commissioning and operations, including resource scheduling and container orchestration.
• Data flow and locality issues, building high-volume, multi-site data transport workflows to support the creation, processing and access of multi-terabyte sized data products.
• Scalable and robust archival and processing storage technologies to meet the demands of a project that will produce petabyte-scale data per month in the next decade.

Additional Requirement

Observatory employees must be authorized to work in the United States.

Total Rewards:

Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) offers a comprehensive total rewards package for this position, subject to eligibility requirements. We are committed to serving our employees and their families with an extensive and competitive compensation and benefits package that supports our employees’ overall well-being and career growth.

Compensation

AUI strives to attract and retain dedicated, highly qualified, competent, and motivated employees by offering competitive compensation and recognition for performance.

For open rank positions, the starting salary/hourly rates for each level is between:

• Exempt: $100,000 and $130,000 per year

Benefits

AUI’s benefits package addresses the needs of employees and their families with most benefits beginning on the first day of employment. AUI provides excellent paid time off (13 holidays, annual accrual of up to 24 vacation days and 15 sick days, additional time off for doctor/dentist visits, and 8 weeks of paid parental leave). Medical, dental and vision plans are effective on the first day of employment. AUI’s retirement benefit contributes an amount equal to 10 percent of a qualified participant’s base pay with no required employee contribution; we also offer an optional supplemental, tax-deferred plan for employee retirement contributions.

Application Instructions:

Select the “Apply Now” button. Please be prepared to upload your current CV/Resume and a cover letter describing interest and suitability for the position

Equal Opportunity Employer Statement:

AUI is an equal opportunity employer. To view our complete statement, please visit https://public.nrao.edu/careers/. If you require reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process, you may submit your request by sending an email to resumes@nrao.edu. PM20