Missions

A position of research engineer in high performance computing is open at the Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon (CRAL) for a period of one year. This position is financed within the framework of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) EuroHPC SPACE (https://www.space-coe.eu/) which gathers various European partners, both academic and industrial. The objective is to develop flagship applications in numerical astrophysics for exascale architectures. CRAL is leading the developments around the adaptive mesh refinement code RAMSES, known for its wide range of applications in astrophysical fluid dynamics and structure formation. RAMSES is currently written in Fortran and runs exclusively on CPU architectures. The objective is to port the essential modules of RAMSES (AMR, gravity, hydrodynamics, particle-mesh interaction) to GPU architectures. In this context, CRAL is contributing to the development of the SHAMROCK code (https://shamrock-code.github.io/), which currently integrates the basic structure of AMR and the hydrodynamics solver from RAMSES. SHAMROCK is developed in C++ and SYCL, enabling it to run on any type of CPU and GPU architecture.

Activités

The main activity involves the development of a particle-mesh interaction module in the SHAMROCK code, of the Cloud-in-Cell or Particle-In-Cell type. Beyond the daily interactions with the researchers and engineers at CRAL, the work will involve regular interactions with the teams of INAF in Italy, Eviden in France and Princeton in USA. An involvement in the scientific animation around HPC developments at CRAL (~10 people) will be necessary: knowledge transfer to students and researchers involved in the project, participation in meetings and scientific life and supervision of trainees. Regular reporting will also be required as part of the work plan established for the SPACE CoE.

Compétences

Proficiency in C++ programming. Ideally, experience with MPI, SYCL, or Kokkos. Desired skills in CUDA, OpenACC, OpenMP, and other GPU-related technologies. Mastery of version control tools and code profiling. Experience in algorithm design and code optimization.
Knowledge in astrophysics appreciated but not mandatory.
The successful candidate should have a Master 2 degree or equivalent.

Contexte de travail

The CRAL is located on two sites (ENS de Lyon in Gerland and Observatoire de Lyon in Saint Genis Laval). The successful candidate will be hosted at the ENS of Lyon. He/she will be required to travel in France and in Europe to meet the different partners of the European project and to participate in the progress meetings. CRAL has access to the resources of the Pôle Scientifique de Modélisation Numérique and the Centre Blaise Pascal at the ENS de Lyon (15,000 cores, technical platform with 67 different GPU models). The CRAL teams also have exclusive access to a Nvidia DGX station equipped with a 64-core AMD Epyc CPU and 4 NVIDIA A100 GPUs linked in NVlink. Access to state-of-the-art EuroHPC technologies.