Reference: SSCE26
Start date: 13/10/2026
Expiration Date: 11/11/2026 23:59:00
Description
The IT, Scientific Computing and AI Area at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) is seeking a senior scientific computing engineer to take ownership of the infrastructure behind the centre’s research, from genomics pipelines to AI models. The successful candidate will be the senior scientific computing specialist in the Area, reporting directly to the Area Director, and will help define where scientific computing at CNIO goes over the next few years.
The role involves shaping and driving the scientific computing roadmap of the centre: owning and evolving the HPC cluster (Slurm), including scheduling, monitoring, capacity planning and user support; building out the GPU and AI infrastructure as the centre’s machine learning workloads grow; and working with researchers to turn their analyses into robust, reproducible pipelines and tools. Co-authoring research papers is possible for those who wish to.
CNIO is one of Europe’s leading cancer research institutions, dedicated to advancing cancer research through excellence in basic, translational, and clinical science. The IT, Scientific Computing and AI Area provides the computing, storage, and AI infrastructure used by all of the centre’s research programmes and core units.
Selection Criteria
• A university degree in a technical or scientific field (Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, Bioinformatics or similar).
• Experience running Linux HPC environments in production, with Slurm or a similar workload manager.
• Experience with automation (Ansible, Python), containers (Apptainer, Docker) and workflow managers (Nextflow, Snakemake or similar).
• Experience with Ceph, Kubernetes, or other distributed storage and orchestration platforms will be valued.
• Experience with GPU computing stacks and AI/ML infrastructure will be valued.
• A background in bioinformatics or experience supporting life science research will be valued.
• Ability and willingness to set technical direction, plan capacity and lead the evolution of the platform, not only operate it.
• Proficiency in English is required. Spanish is not required.
• Good communication skills and a service-oriented approach to working with researchers.
The CNIO Offers
• Incorporation into a Cancer Research Centre of excellence of international relevance.
• Gross annual salary between €55,000 and €65,000.
• Social benefits. Flexible compensation (health insurance, meals, transportation, childcare).
• Hybrid working arrangement, based in Madrid.
• Four-year contract funded by the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence programme.
Applications
Applicants should send their applications by e-mail to empleo@cnio.es, clearly quoting the Reference: SSCE26 in the subject line of the e-mail. Applications and resumes without a reference will not be considered.
Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) data protection policy
Basic information about data protection
Pursuant to the provisions of EU Regulation 2016/679 regarding the protection of personal data (GDPR), any personal data you provide us with through this employment offer will be duly recorded and incorporated into the data processing systems managed by the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre Foundation (F.S.P CNIO) in order to register and manage your participation in the corresponding selection process. Furthermore, your personal information will not be passed onto anyone else except when required by law, and it will also not be used for any other purpose than the one indicated here. You may exercise your rights regarding access, rectification, suppression, limitation of processing, portability and opposition by writing to the following address: c/Melchor Fernandez Almagro 3, 28029 (Madrid), addressing your correspondence to the Delegado de Protección de Datos, or by emailing: delegado_lopd@cnio.es
If you require further information about the processing of your personal data, go to the following link on our webpage: https://www.cnio.es/politica-de-privacidad-y-proteccion-de-datos/