Jobs › AbbVie

HPC Architect

AbbVie · North Chicago, IL · Full time · Information Technology

Posted Sep 8, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026

Apply at AbbVie

Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

What would you do

Scientific users want to run what they want when they want. How do you design a scheduler and allocation policy they'll accept?

What they are checking: Whether they can design fair scheduling and allocation that scientists accept, since a shared cluster fails when users feel locked out.

What does running scientific computing inside a pharmaceutical company change about security and data handling?

What they are checking: Whether they understand confidentiality and validation needs in pharmaceutical research, where data leaks or integrity gaps carry serious consequences.

A research group's job keeps failing and they blame the platform. How do you work that out?

What they are checking: Whether they troubleshoot calmly with researchers using logs and evidence, separating code problems from platform problems without blame.

How do you keep an architecture current when the hardware and the science both move?

What they are checking: Whether they have a plan for keeping the platform current as hardware and scientific methods change, without disrupting ongoing research.

This is based at North Chicago within the research technology organization. What would you want to know about the current estate before you took it?

What they are checking: Whether they ask about the current cluster, cloud setup, users and technical debt before accepting, showing they know what shapes the job.

About the work

This role is technical architect for on-premises, cloud and hybrid high performance computing for scientific work. Walk me through an environment you architected.

What they are checking: Whether they have designed an HPC environment end to end, making the key architecture choices rather than only administering systems someone else built.

What changes when you run scientific computing in a hybrid environment rather than all on-premises?

What they are checking: Whether they understand hybrid trade-offs like data movement, identity, scheduling and cost, which make mixed environments harder than a single site.

How do you decide which workloads belong in the cloud and which stay on your own hardware?

What they are checking: Whether they place workloads based on cost, data gravity and burst needs, rather than assuming the cloud is always cheaper or faster.

How do you handle the data side — moving large scientific data sets without it becoming the bottleneck?

What they are checking: Whether they plan for moving large scientific data sets, because data transfer often limits research speed more than raw compute does.

The posting names architecting operational and maintenance processes, not just the platform. What does good operational practice look like in a computing environment?

What they are checking: Whether they design monitoring, patching and capacity processes alongside the platform, since a good architecture still fails without solid operations.

Practice this interview out loud.

Offer builds a real interview for this exact role at AbbVie from your resume and this job description, asks the questions one at a time, and tells you what landed. The first one is free.

Practice this out loud

The full job description

As published by AbbVie.

AbbVie Information Research (IR) Scientific and Cloud Computing team is seeking a highly motivated High Performance Computing (HPC) Architect to provide technical leadership for scientific and R&D computing environments. This role is responsible for architecting and evolving on-premises, cloud, and hybrid HPC platforms, including compute, GPU, networking, storage, workload management, containers, automation, security, and scientific software services. The successful candidate will have strong hands-on experience with HPC infrastructure, AWS, and hybrid cloud environments, Slurm, infrastructure as code, automation, DevOps practices, and enterprise IT operations. The HPC Architect will guide the design, implementation, lifecycle management, and support of secure, scalable, reliable, and cost-effective solutions while partnering with R&D stakeholders and fostering collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement. Responsibilities: • Serve as the technical architect for AbbVie IR’s on-premises, cloud, and hybrid HPC based scientific-computing environments. Responsible for architecture, standards, infrastructure (software and hardware) lifecycle, evaluation of POC, capacity planning, and cost management. • Architect and continuously evolve all aspects of scientific HPC computing platforms, including operational and maintenance processes. • Design, implement, and support HPC compute and networking infrastructure - compute, networking, and storage. • Administer and optimize Slurm workload management, including partitions, queues, priorities, fair-share, reservations, resource limits, GPU scheduling, accounting, job troubleshooting, performance tuning, and integration with Posit and other research platforms. • Establish secure, reproducible container and scientific software environments using Apptainer/Singularity, Docker-compatible workflows, environment modules, compilers, MPI, CUDA, Python, R, and application dependencies. • Assist with the architecture and support of Posit Workbench, Posit Connect, Posit Package Manager, and related analytics platforms, integrating them with Slurm, Active Directory, storage, GPUs, and scientific software. • Implement secure identity and access management in accordance with AbbVie security SOPs and applicable industry standards. Architect, implement, and support vulnerability-management processes and remediation efforts. • Lead efforts to automate provisioning, configuration, patching, testing, monitoring, remediation, and lifecycle activities. • Maintain observability metrics, architecture diagrams, inventories, dependency maps, configuration standards, runbooks, support procedures, and end-of-life plans while addressing technical debt, operational risks, and capacity constraints. Lead the development of appropriate reporting and monitoring tools and dashboards. • Lead design and incident reviews, vendor engagements, proofs of concept, capacity planning, and implementation governance; provide technical direction and mentorship to engineering and partner teams. • Partner with R&D to create appropriate solutions for research workloads. Required: • Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, IT, or related field with 7 years of experience; OR Master’s Degree with 6 years of experience; OR PhD 2 years’ experience. • Respective years of experience in application program development. • Leadership experience is required, including the ability to guide, collaborate with and influence technical teams, projects, and workstreams both within and outside the organizational structure. Demonstrated ability to balance technical depth with people leadership and stakeholder management. • Expert knowledge of Linux, HPC compute and GPU architectures, CPU/memory/NUMA/PCIe design, MPI, NVIDIA GPUs, CUDA, MIG, node provisioning, firmware, drivers, and hardware lifecycle management. • Strong experience with Slurm, including partitions, queues, scheduling policies, resource management, GPU scheduling, accounting, troubleshooting, and performance optimization. • Strong knowledge of HPC networking, including Mellanox/NVIDIA InfiniBand, RDMA, Aruba switching, Ethernet, VLANs, routing, segmentation, subnet management, monitoring, and low-latency communications. • Experience with high-performance and distributed storage, including Weka or comparable platforms, Lustre, NFS, CIFS/SMB, storage gateways, quotas, permissions, data movement, replication, backup, archival, and recovery. • Experience integrating Active Directory or equivalent identity services with SSH, SSSD, sudo, service accounts, security groups, filesystem permissions, and least-privilege access models. • Experience with Apptainer/Singularity, Docker-compatible workflows, container security, reproducibility, GPU/MPI enablement, image management, and scientific software environments using modules, compilers, Python, R, CUDA, and related dependencies. • Experience supporting interactive research platforms such as Posit Workbench, Posit Connect, Jupyter, or comparable tools, including integration with Slurm, GPUs, identity services, storage, and software environments. • Experience architecting cloud and hybrid HPC solutions, including networking, security, identity, provisioning, storage, autoscaling, infrastructure as code, workload placement, cost management, monitoring, and lifecycle operations. • Strong scripting, automation, and DevOps skills. • Knowledge of observability, centralized logging, alerting, incident response, root-cause analysis, capacity planning, performance engineering, cybersecurity, vulnerability management, encryption, patching, and access governance. • Experience creating architecture diagrams, technical standards, operating models, runbooks, migration plans, lifecycle strategies, and executive-level recommendations. • Experience working in Data Science, Life Sciences, or Pharmaceutical industry working in regulated or enterprise IT environments. Preferred: • Work experience in the pharmaceutical industry preferred. Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law: ​ • The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of this posting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location, and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future. ​ • We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.​ • This job is eligible to participate in our long-term incentive programs. Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law.​ AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community.  Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled. US & Puerto Rico only - to learn more, visit https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/equal-employment-opportunity-employer.html US & Puerto Rico applicants seeking a reasonable accommodation, click here to learn more: https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/reasonable-accommodations.html

Apply at AbbVie