HPC Research Scientist for Climate Simulations (f/m/d)

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) – The Research University in the Helmholtz Association creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is our goal to make significant contributions to mastering the global challenges of mankind in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9.000 employees of KIT cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in research, academic education, and innovation. We are looking for the Institute for the Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC) as soon as possible and limited up to August 31, 2026 for a

HPC Research Scientist for Climate Simulations (f/m/d)

– This position offers the possibility to acquire a PhD degree –
75 % part-time

The Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC) is a central scientific institution of KIT in connection with tasks in research, teaching, and innovation and performs overarching services within KIT and for external parties. The JRG-FiNE group develops the high performance, sparse linear algebra framework Ginkgo, which is currently integrated into a wide range of simulation frameworks such as MFEM, deal.II, and openCARP and a partner in several major research projects such as the European MicroCARD project, the BMBF ExaSIM project targeting OpenFOAM acceleration, and multiple efforts within the US Exascale Computing Project. The positions are part of a major project named WarmWorld with partners such as DKRZ, MPI-M, and DWD to modernize the ICON climate research and numerical weather prediction (NWP) code. This project targets scalable performance and code development for the next-generation supercomputers. The goals are 1) better scalability and performance portability to allow ICON to be more efficient on modern Exascale machines and 2) enabling km-scale simulations. At the same time, the code should be modularized to leverage new technologies, bring scalable code development and become more accessible to scientists. In this project, the applicant will:

• Have the opportunity to collaborate with renowned experts in the field of numerical weather prediction and climate research;
• Be part of an agile and diverse team with expertise in modern performance portable and sustainable research software development;
• Research and apply modern C++ software design practices to a complex project;
• Design an abstraction to plug-in several GPU software programming systems;
• Help in enabling portable climate-simulations and numerical weather prediction on top of GPUs;
• Research library component interfacing in different languages including from Fortran to C++;
• Implementation of unit tests of the corresponding functionalities;
• Documentation of the developed and implemented algorithms.

This position offers the possibility to acquire a PhD degree. Job requirements:

• University degree (Masters / Diplom (Uni)), ideally in the area of computer science and high-performance computing.
• Knowledge of C++17 is mandatory and of modern HPC systems (i.e. simulations, parallel applications and capability computing).
• Knowledge of CUDA, or HIP or Kokkos parallel device programming is mandatory.
• Sustainable software development (git, CI, CB, unit tests, etc.) is a strong plus.
• A background in numerical weather prediction or climate simulations is desirable.
• Confident attitude and very good communication skills.
• Good language skills in English.

The SCC offers you an exciting and varied job within an agile team as well as a wide range of training opportunities and flexible and family-friendly working time models. We are looking forward to your application (Motivations letter / CV / Certificates)! We offer you an attractive and modern workplace with access to the excellent equipment of the KIT, a varied work, a wide range of training opportunities, flexible working time models and a casino/cafeteria. We prefer to balance the number of employees (f/m/d). Therefore we kindly ask female applicants to apply for this job. Recognized severely disabled persons will be preferred if they are equally qualified. Please apply online until 11.01.2023 by using the vacancy number 798/2022 and the reference number 6 to Mr Dominik Meschar, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Human Resources, Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany. For further information, please contact Dr. Cojean,
terry.cojean@kit.edu. For more information about SCC as your new work home, please visit https://www.scc.kit.edu/en/aboutus/working-at-scc.php.

You can find further information on the internet: www.kit.edu

KIT – The Research University in the Helmholtz Association