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

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