High Performance Computing Lead

Job Description

About the role 

The HPC Lead is responsible for owning and evolving the High Performance Computing infrastructure for R&D scientists, including clusters, GPU provisioning, storage, and notebook infrastructure. This role serves as the technical and strategic anchor for HPC workloads for scientific computing and adjacent AI/ML needs. You will combine platform strategy, architecture, operational leadership, and partnership with scientific stakeholders while acting as a senior, hands-on contributor. 

What you will do 

• Own the HPC infrastructure and work directly with engineers on cluster configuration, GPU provisioning, storage tier management, scheduler tuning, and notebook infrastructure. 

• Define and own the HPC architecture roadmap, including cluster topology, GPU fleet composition, storage architecture, job-scheduling strategy, and the trajectory toward modern orchestration. 

• Drive GPU procurement and investment strategy, evaluating vendor proposals critically, and making investment decisions with architectural confidence. 

• Manage HPC capacity plans, hardware maintenance, support vendors, and contractor relationships, defining SLA design and the build-versus-buy decision for physical maintenance. 

• Partner closely with scientists, computational specialists, and bioinformaticians to understand their workloads and ensure the HPC estate meets their evolving requirements. 

• Use AI coding and productivity tools for automation scripts, infrastructure-as-code, operational runbooks, and performance analysis. 

• Lead, mentor, and develop engineering teams to drive technical excellence, foster a culture of continuous improvement, and build deep HPC expertise across the organization. 

• Establish and monitor HPC performance metrics, KPIs, and optimization targets; conduct regular performance profiling and capacity forecasting to ensure efficient resource utilization. 

• Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation, operational runbooks, and knowledge management systems to ensure operational continuity and enable team self-sufficiency. 

• Oversee budget planning, financial forecasting, and strategic procurement decisions for HPC infrastructure investments, ensuring cost-effectiveness and alignment with organizational priorities. 

• Establish and enforce security protocols, compliance standards, and disaster recovery procedures for the HPC environment, ensuring business continuity and data protection. 

• Communicate HPC strategy, status, and recommendations to executive stakeholders and cross-functional teams, translating technical concepts for non-technical audiences. 

Qualifications

**Required Qualifications**

• Expert-level depth in HPC infrastructure, including cluster management, GPU provisioning (NVIDIA, A100/H100 generation), MPI, storage (Lustre, NFS, object storage), and job scheduling.
• Expert understanding of GPU architecture, including generations, interconnects (NVLink, InfiniBand), memory profiles, and their implications for scientific workloads.
• Strong experience with modern orchestration and the architectural trajectory toward Kubernetes-native HPC environments (e.g., GPU operators, Kubernetes scheduler extensions).
• Strong strategic capability in defining maintenance and support strategies, evaluating vendor contract structures, and managing hardware investments.
• Strong ability to understand scientific workloads, conversing credibly with computational scientists and bioinformaticians to translate their needs into infrastructure solutions.
• Strong proficiency in using AI-assisted engineering tools as a primary workflow for infrastructure automation.
• Demonstrated leadership experience managing and mentoring technical teams, with a track record of building high-performing engineering organizations and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
• Proven expertise in budget planning, financial forecasting, and strategic procurement decisions for technology infrastructure investments.
• Experience establishing and monitoring performance metrics, KPIs, and optimization targets; demonstrated capability in capacity forecasting and resource utilization analysis.
• Strong background in developing and maintaining comprehensive documentation, operational runbooks, and knowledge management systems for complex technical environments.

**Bonus Points**

• Experience in agriculture, life sciences, scientific computing, or a regulated enterprise environment.
• Experience building platforms, products, or services used by multiple internal teams.
• Experience working in distributed, international engineering organisations.
• Familiarity with popular scientific computing frameworks and libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, HPC libraries).
• Background in security protocols, compliance standards, and disaster recovery procedures for enterprise infrastructure environments.
• Experience communicating complex technical concepts to executive stakeholders and cross-functional teams.

Additional Information

Site Details 

Jealott's Hill International Research Centre UK is situated in pleasant semi-rural surroundings between Bracknell and Maidenhead and is the place of work for approximately 800 Syngenta scientists and support staff. Jealott’s Hill is one of the main global research and development sites and key activities include research into discovery of new active ingredients, new formulation technologies, product safety and technical support of our product range. 

What we offer 

• Extensive benefits package including a generous pension scheme, bonus scheme, private medical & life insurance. 

• Up to 31.5 days annual holiday. 

• Flexible working 

• We offer a position which contributes to valuable and impactful work in a stimulating and international environment.   

• The opportunity to develop and apply your science within the chemical industry. 

• The chance to work as part of a global team to address the current and future needs of the agricultural sector. 

• Learning culture and wide range of training options. 

Syngenta has been ranked as a top 5 employer and number 1 in agriculture by Science Journal.   

Syngenta is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or any other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status. Learn more about our D&I initiatives here: https://www.syngenta.com/careers/working-syngenta/diversity-and-inclusion