Senior Operations Manager

**Band** Level 4   **Job Description Summary** The Senior Operations Manager is responsible for the day-to-day operations, optimization, and user enablement of the High-Performance Computing (HPC) environment supporting Novartis Biomedical Research. The role ensures that scientific workloads run reliably, securely, and efficiently across on-premise HPC, scientific software stacks, SBGrid, specialized on-premise applications, the DGX AI/ML compute environment, and AWS-based compute environments, with a major focus on the scientific software ecosystem — the HPC toolbox, SBGrid, and specialized on-premise applications — alongside AI/ML and cloud compute enablement. The role works in close partnership with Novartis IT, the BR Compute Management Team, and third-party providers to deliver a stable, performant, and continuously evolving compute platform. Location: Hyderabad, India #LI-Hybrid   **Job Description** **Key Responsibilities** * Provide user support, incident management, and issue escalation, coordinating with Novartis IT teams and third-party providers for timely resolution. * Manage user community communications — proactive notifications on platform issues, maintenance, and scheduled downtimes. * Own user training, onboarding, and offboarding coordination. * Perform system monitoring, storage hygiene, and vulnerability management, coordinating remediation with relevant teams. * Test key functionalities after upgrades and patches, in collaboration with Novartis IT or third-party providers. * Collaborate with the BR Compute Management Team for direction, alignment, and prioritization of activities. * Deliver regular usage reports and status updates to the BR Compute Management Team. * Maintain and extend user documentation, training materials, internal SOPs, and best-practice guidance. **Platform-Specific Responsibilities (Across HPC, Scientific Software & AI/ML Compute)** * Support the day-to-day operations of the on-premise HPC platform — contributing to scheduler policies, capacity planning, upgrades, and patching validation, and acting as an escalation point for cluster, interconnect, file system, and scheduler-related matters in coordination with infrastructure and vendor teams. * Build and maintain the HPC software toolbox using an agreed EasyBuild toolchain, managing compilers, MPI libraries, environment modules, containers, and the lifecycle of scientific applications across research domains. * Support application onboarding, benchmarking, and performance tuning in collaboration with research and AI/ML teams. * Administer the SBGrid software suite — coordinating updates, licensing, and issue resolution with the SBGrid consortium, and supporting SBGrid-based workflows within HPC pipelines. * Operate specialized on-premise scientific platforms such as the Schrödinger Platform, CryoSPARC Platform, and NICE DCV remote visualization — covering licensing, upgrades, HPC/GPU/storage integration, user enablement, and vendor coordination. * Administer and operate the NVIDIA DGX environment supporting BR AI/ML workloads — managing the DGX scheduler, GPU quotas, drivers, CUDA stacks, containers, and AI/ML frameworks. * Coordinate DGX upgrades, firmware/BIOS updates, and patching with Novartis teams and NVIDIA/third-party providers; monitor DGX-attached storage and engage with users on data hygiene. * Deliver regular HPC and DGX usage, job/GPU efficiency, and platform status reports to the BR Compute Management Team. **Required Qualifications & Experience** * Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Computational Sciences, or a related discipline. * 7+ years of hands-on experience administering enterprise or research HPC environments. * Strong Linux system administration skills. * Deep expertise with at least one HPC job scheduler. * Experience with parallel file systems. * Proficiency with MPI, compilers, environment modules, and scientific software stacks. * Experience with container technologies. * Exposure to GPU/DGX environments and AI/ML frameworks. * Scripting/automation skills (Bash, Python). **Preferred Qualifications** * Experience supporting life sciences workloads — genomics, structural biology (SBGrid, Cryo-EM, crystallography), cheminformatics, AI/ML in drug discovery. * Familiarity with specialized scientific platforms (Schrödinger, CryoSPARC, NICE DCV). * Familiarity with monitoring/observability tools. * Experience with identity management (LDAP/AD, SSO) in multi-tenant HPC setups. * Prior experience in a large enterprise research or regulated (GxP) environment. **Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion / EEO paragraph**   Novartis is committed to building an outstanding, inclusive work environment and diverse teams representative of the patients and communities we serve.   **Accessibility and accommodation**  Novartis is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the recruitment process, or in order to perform the essential functions of a position, please send an e-mail to [email protected] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Please include the job requisition number in your message   **Skills Desired** Algorithms, Computer Programming, Computer Science, Computer Vision, Data Science, People Management, Waterfall Model