[Remote] Scientific Platform Engineer
Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Harvard University, through Harvard Medical School's SBGrid Consortium, supports a global scientific software platform for structural biology, cryo-EM, and related research. The Scientific Platform Engineer will lead modernization, security, reliability, and engineering evolution through CI pipelines, reproducible packaging, release engineering, runtime hardening, observability, and software supply-chain integrity.
Responsibilities
- Design and implement CI pipelines for scientific software across macOS and Linux
- Develop regression and smoke test harnesses for packaged software
- Catch failures before distribution rather than after client installation
- Support fast-moving development branches (e.g., nightly builds) safely
- Help define and enforce a canonical build contract
- Improve dependency tracking and version control
- Enable deterministic rebuilds across environments
- Contribute to artifact integrity and metadata tracking (e.g., SBOM readiness)
- Add tests and versioning discipline to SBGrid’s runtime wrapper system (“capsules”)
- Introduce feature flags and safer rollout mechanisms
- Improve logging, observability, and error classification. Internal Tooling & Observability
- Develop dashboards and structured signals around build failures and common error states
- Reduce reliance on tribal knowledge by encoding workflows into systems
Skills
- Minimum of five years' post-secondary education or relevant work experience
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related technical field
- Minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in platform engineering, systems engineering, DevOps, build/release engineering, research computing infrastructure, or a closely related area
- Two or more years of professional software development experience
- Experience with CI/CD systems (e.g., GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, similar)
- Experience with an Infrastructure-as-Code tool (e.g. Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Terraform, etc)
- Comfortable with Linux internals and scripting in Bash
- Experience debugging cross-platform build or runtime issues
- Solid programming skills in at least one interpreted language (Python preferred, Javascript, Ruby, etc)
- Comfort working in a remote, documentation-driven environment
- Experience with HPC environments or research computing
- Familiarity with containerization (Docker, Singularity/Apptainer, similar)
- Experience with artifact signing or supply-chain tooling
- Experience working in regulated or compliance-sensitive environments
- Interest in scientific research software ecosystems
- Strong engineering discipline and curiosity matter
- Remote candidates must be available to work during Eastern Standard Time (EST) business hours
Benefits
- Generous paid time off including parental leave
- Medical, dental, and vision health insurance coverage starting on day one
- Retirement plans with university contributions
- Wellbeing and mental health resources
- Support for families and caregivers
- Professional development opportunities including tuition assistance and reimbursement
- Commuter benefits, discounts and campus perks
- Fully remote work arrangement
Company Overview