System Engineer / System Engineeress for ML Platform on a Cloud-like HPC Infrastructure (Data-Centric Focus)

System Engineer for ML Platform on a Cloud-like HPC Infrastructure (Data-Centric Focus)

100%, Singapore, fixed-term

The Singapore-ETH Centre was established in 2010 by ETH Zurich - The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Singapore's National Research Foundation (NRF), as part of the NRF's CREATE campus. As ETH Zurich's only research centre outside of Switzerland, the centre has strengthened the research capacity of ETH Zurich to develop sustainable solutions to global challenges in Switzerland, Singapore, and the surrounding regions.

Set in Asia, in a rapidly urbanising region, the Singapore-ETH Centre aims to provide practical solutions to some of the most pressing challenges on urban sustainability, resilience, and health through its programmes: Future Cities Lab Global (FCL Global) and Future Health Technologies (FHT).

The centre serves as an intellectual hub for research, bringing together principal investigators and researchers from diverse disciplines and backgrounds. To promote the exchange of ideas and expertise, our researchers actively collaborate with universities and research institutes and engage with industry and government agencies to translate knowledge into practical solutions for real-world problems.

Project Background

The AIS Instrumentation Gym is a multi-tier ML platform being built by both the National University of Singapore and the Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC) for shared scientific instruments (e.g., electron microscopy, X-ray imaging, and light microscopy). It supports researchers across three compute scales: laptop-based prototyping (S-Gym), single-GPU workstations (M-Gym), and multi-node HPC at the National Supercomputing Centre Singapore (L-Gym).

The Gym's purpose is to close the gap between high-dimensional scientific data and hypothesis generation. It accomplishes this by transforming raw imaging data into learned, interpretable representations that scientists can explore as navigable landscapes, making patterns, anomalies, and structure legible at scales human intuition can no longer reach unaided.

As an ecosystem, the Gym brings together domain scientists, ML researchers, and systems builders around a common platform. We are now hiring full-time engineers and researchers to build, validate, and scale it.

Job Description

As a System Engineer for ML Platform on a Cloud-like HPC Infrastructure (Data-Centric Focus), you will:

• Manage the ML platform with a data-centric focus, ensuring infrastructure supports the full research lifecycle—from data tokenization to model cartography and validation—rather than just code deployment.
• Support data-centric CI/CD pipelines that ensure the automatic logging of artifact provenance (linking specific training data IDs, preprocessing logs, and model hyperparameters to deployment artifacts).
• Utilize automation frameworks (Ansible) to manage modular vService integrations, enabling the seamless incorporation of Token-Cartographer components (e.g., tokenization and alignment modules) into research environments.
• Ensure platform observability makes data and latent space embeddings visible and queryable for researchers throughout the model's lifetime.
• Maintain the interface to the infrastructure provisioning APIs to support dynamic, multi-tenant vCluster creation and resource allocation.
• Support the end-to-end provisioning and management of the ML platform, including secret vaults, git runners, and centralized artifact repositories.

This position requires quarterly travel to Switzerland to synchronize with the core Swiss team. Join us to operate an ML platform at the bleeding edge of innovation, driving impact within a world-class tech stack.

Profile

Must-haves:

• A bachelor's degree or higher in computer engineering, computer science, or a relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• You should have knowledge of:
• Microservice architecture
• Linux administration skills
• Automation tools and frameworks, including CI/CD processes (e.g., Gitlab CI, HashiCorp Vault)
• Developing Ansible configurations
• Versioning systems and CI/CD workflows such as ArgoCD

Preferred:

• Understanding of "Data-Centric" ML principles (e.g., ensuring data quality, lineage, and versioning are first-class citizens in CI/CD).
• Experience building CI/CD pipelines for modular scientific/ML libraries or containerized research workflows.

Personal qualities:

• Self-motivated and proactive team player
• Strong communication skills or interest in developing them
• Strong problem-solving mindset with tolerance for uncertainty and change
• Understands user needs and works collaboratively to address them
• Adaptive and willing to learn new technologies with and from others
• Comfortable tackling complex or ambiguous problems
• Open to admitting when you don't know and reaching out for the right expertise when needed

Project management and methodology:

• Experience working in self-organized teams
• Familiarity with Agile methodology
• Experience with test-driven development is a plus

Workplace

We Offer

• Accredited with 5 Tripartite Standards by Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) Singapore.
• A diverse workplace with 32 nationalities, offering ample opportunities for mutual learning.
• A positive and inclusive working environment
• 25 days of annual leave for fixed-term contracts
• 1 day of Birthday Leave
• Annual dental benefits
• Commitment to supporting your physical and mental wellness
• Comprehensive healthcare insurance coverage
• Flexible hybrid work arrangement (up to 2 days per week from home)
• Abundant networking opportunities across various disciplines
• Accredited with NS mark certification

The Singapore-ETH Centre is an equal opportunity and family-friendly employer. All candidates will be evaluated on their merits and qualifications, without regard to gender, race, age, or religion.

We Value Diversity and Sustainability

In line with our values, ETH Zurich encourages an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity, and nurture a working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our Equal Opportunities and Diversity website to learn how we ensure a fair and open environment that allows everyone to grow and flourish. Sustainability is a core value for us - we are consistently working towards a climate-neutral future.

Curious? So Are We.

We look forward to receiving your application. Please apply online using the form below. Only applications matching the job profile will be considered.

Work location: 1 Create Way, CREATE Tower, Singapore 138602 (NUS University Town)

Contract Duration: 2 Years

Salary: Remuneration will be commensurate with the candidate's qualifications and relevant experience.

For further information about The Singapore-ETH Centre, please visit our website.

For any inquiries, please contact: Prof. Duane Loh (NUS) at duaneloh@nus.edu.sg (strictly no applications).

Please note: Pre-selection is carried out by the responsible recruiters and not by artificial intelligence.