About the position

This position is aimed at those who want to work at the intersection of information technology, research, and research methods, together with the Department for Research Services at the University of Oslo’s Center for IT (USIT). The main task of this position is to perform first line support and “upwards” for the NCMM research centre at the University of Oslo.

The Department for Research Infrastructure is located in the Division of IT in Research. USIT is responsible for the operations, development, and user support for IT solutions and services at the University of Oslo (UiO). USIT is one of Norway’s largest public IT environments with more than 350 employees as of 1. January 2023. We work with a broad range of future oriented technologies across a large set of interesting problems. We emphasize giving employees challenging opportunities, providing the foundation for rich learning and personal development.

The division as a whole is among other things responsible for tasks under the mandate of Uninett Sigma2, the organization for national collaboration for storage and High Performance Computing (HPC). The department collaborates with CERN in operating experiments as part of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) and the Nordic Datagrid Facility (NDGF). In PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) the department has responsibilities in HPC operations for the Nordic Tier-1 resources, for experimenting with new technologies for the future of HPC, and in prototyping of Exascale-ready software solutions. Similar activities are also pursued through our involvement with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the Nordic eInfrastructure Collaboration (NeIC). Locally at UiO, the division has responsibility for the Services for Sensitive Data (TSD) and its HPC cluster, Colossus. TSD is Norway’s largest special purpose eInfrastructure, primarily serving the needs of health researchers in Norway and European projects such as Tryggve2. UiO is also part of the Lumi consortium through Uninett Sigma2, Lumi is a pre-exascale HPC system funded by EuroHPC.

The Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM) was established in 2008 and is the Norwegian node in the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine. NCMM is a joint venture between the University of Oslo, Health Region South-East, and the Research Council of Norway. The overall objective of NCMM is to conduct cutting edge research in molecular medicine and biotechnology. NCMM focuses on precision medicine and systems technologies with expertise in computational biology, genome medicine, as well as chemical and structural biology.

The NCMM IT team includes three employees and the infrastructure currently consists of approximately 200 desktop and scientific instrument computers, 37 Linux servers that serve a growing number of virtual machines for HPC and Life Science based applications, one Petabyte of server storage capacity, two gigabit grade Ethernet wired networks (lab production and academic network), as well as relevant printing and WiFi (Eduroam) facilities. The IT infrastructure serves over one hundred local scientists, as well as external scientific collaborators.

Work tasks

• Helpdesk support to scientists and postgraduate researchers (installation of hardware, software and maintenance of Windows, macOS and Linux).
• Helpdesk support for printing service at NCMM.
• Support for mobile devices.
• AV support of on premise and hybrid setups.
• Purchasing, testing and deploying IT devices.
• User account management.
• Networking troubleshooting (connecting/patching computers to the NCMM LANs and also Wireless network).
• Engaging with the scientists in the process of configuring non-standard IT laboratory equipment (workstations and servers that service complex scientific instruments).

Qualification requirements

• Education from University or University College within the field of Computer Science or Information Technology and minimum work experience of 3 years is required. Alternatively, sufficient job experience greater than 4 years coupled with IT certifications will be accepted, if the candidate can document ability to master the tasks the post requires.
• Intermediate Knowledge of Windows administration including Microsoft Active Directory, SCCM and PowerShell.
• Intermediate knowledge of basic Linux system administration including account and storage management, Bash scripting, security, SELinux and troubleshooting.
• Intermediate knowledge of networking services such as NFS, Samba, DNS, DHCP, NAT, Firewalld, iptables, SSH, PXE.
• Intermediate knowledge of Linux/Windows OS Virtualization like KVM, SPICE, Vmware ESX, in order to support a production of a number of virtual servers.
• Ability to develop/learn new tools/solutions to help the scientists solve data management problems.
• Good time management skills. Multitasking and serving a range of different IT requests and projects within predefined deadlines is essential.
• Service minded and user oriented person.
• Good command of English (both written and oral) is required as both the IT unit and the centers have English as their working language. Ability to communicate technical information to nontechnical users.

Personal skills

• Good time management skills. Multitasking and serving a range of different IT requests and projects within predefined deadlines is essential.
• Service minded and user oriented person.

We offer

• Experience of machine room work such as mounting physical servers to racks.
• Experience of using or supporting UiO IT service is highly desirable, but not essential.
• Experience of working in large Linux/Windows/macOS hybrid environment.
• Previous exposure to IT support in academia and/or research and development environments.

The position is posted as a “senior engineer” (SKO 1181) or an “head engineer” (SKO 1087), and the hired person will get a position according to the experience and qualifications held. For a senior engineer there is a much higher expectation to the ability to perform major tasks independently, and also the possibility to lead smaller projects. The salary level will be for SKO 1181 within the start range of 615.000NOK to 746.900 NOK, while SKO 1087 will have a range of 573.900NOK to 636.700.

How to apply

The application must include:

• Cover letter statement of motivation
• CV (summarizing education, positions and academic work)
• Copies of educational certificates (academic transcripts only)

The application with attachments must be delivered in our recruiting system.

Formal regulations

Interviews with the best qualified candidates will be arranged.

According to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.

Ansettelsen blir gjennomført etter prinsippene i statsansatteloven, og lovverk som regulerer eksport av kunnskap, teknologi og tjenester. Etter ansettelsen må du påregne at det kan skje endringer i arbeidsområdet.

Inclusion and diversity are a strength. The University of Oslo has a personnel policy objective of achieving a balanced gender composition.Furthermore, we want employees with diverse professional expertise, life experience and perspectives.

If there are qualified applicants with disabilities, employment gaps or immigrant background, we will invite at least one applicant from each of these categories to an interview.

Contact information

For more information about the position contact the:

• Assistant director USIT Gard Thomassen at 93674926, gardot@usit.uio.no , or
• NCMM Director Janna Saarela, janna.saarela@ncmm.uio.no

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