BRC is recruiting again: Research Computing Support internships and Domain Consultant position

September 11, 2018

It’s the start of Fall semester, and the Berkeley Research Computing (BRC) Program is once again recruiting for undergraduate and graduate student positions! These positions have proven to be a great way for students to contribute to the research mission of the campus, and to learn a good deal along the way. Our news stories about BRC interns describe some of the cool things our interns have done in past semesters.

For undergraduates, BRC is seeking multiple Research Computing Support interns. The positions are open to UC Berkeley undergraduate students in any year and any major, with expected graduation between May 2019 - May 2023. Here’s the job description:

Berkeley Research Computing (BRC) is seeking undergraduate students who are excited about having an impact on the research mission of the university. Research computing support interns will provide direct support to campus researchers who need help building software for various compute environments, debugging build dependencies, and learning to re-engineer informal recipes or scripts into more robust build scripts or devops-based deployment approaches. Additional opportunities for students with the right skills and motivation include Jupyterhub notebook development and modification, reviewing and testing documentation for researchers, evaluation and testing of cloud-based computing and data solutions, and development projects for dashboards, analytics, and visualization tools for the team and our user community.

Familiarity with and enthusiasm for the core concepts of computing and data wrangling are required. Basic Linux/Mac command line experience, and strong written and communication skills are also required. Students should be familiar with Linux and Windows environments, comfortable working as part of a team and independently, and show curiosity and initiative. We’ll provide you with training in the campus supercomputing environment, and other related research computing and data tools. You’ll work in a cohort of interns with our research computing staff, and will be directly involved with operations and development of our services.

This position will give students experience working with campus researchers, and will familiarize them with the tools used to support research computing and data wrangling. Working with a team of professional systems administrators and developers, students will also develop professional engineering and communication skills.

Interns are expected to work around 10 hours/week during the academic year, with the possibility of a full-time position that will tackle significant projects during summer 2019. 

Work-study is available, but not required.

We believe diversity makes our team stronger and more effective. We encourage students from all backgrounds and disciplines to apply.

Interested undergrads can apply via Handshake or by sending a resume and cover letter via e-mail to research-it@berkeley.edu.
 
For graduate students, BRC is seeking additional Domain Consultants. The Domain Consultant role is a key aspect of our research support, helping us “to extend the reach and impact of campus and national research computing infrastructure in support of the research conducted by faculty and students at UC Berkeley” (as excerpted from the Domain Consultant job description). BRC Domain Consultants serve as a first point of contact for faculty, postdocs, grad students, and research staff to understand their research and facilitate access to computing resources that might best support their research and learn about and support the myriad research projects happening across all of campus – not just within their own departments. Domain consultants have been drawn from a range of academic domains, including statistics, nuclear engineering, computational genomics, chemistry, and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM). Domain consultants are typically graduate students who are able to devote 8-10 hours a week to BRC consultation, documentation, and training activities. The BRC program will provide you with deeper training in a range of computational resources, as well as professional skills development in technology, consulting, and communication skills. This is an excellent way to explore an alternative to the faculty career path that allows you to stay within the academy, and deeply involved in research. Previous domain consultants have gone on to full-time staff positions in support of academic research.

The Domain Consultant is an hourly position, and does not include fee remission (it is typically in addition to a GSR or GSI appointment, and so requires approval of your advisor).  If you are interested in the Domain Consultant program, contact us at research-it@berkeley.edu.