Computational Consulting Lead

Department: Kellogg Research Support
Salary/Grade: ITS/82

Job Summary:

As the Computational Computing Lead, you will lead a team of Computational Research Consultants that accelerates and facilitates ambitious academic research at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. The Computational Consulting team sits within a dedicated Research Support team at Kellogg. Clients include Kellogg faculty members and doctoral students with a broad spectrum of academic backgrounds, research interests, and technical backgrounds. Consultants typically engage multiple clients at a time, and these engagements may last from a few days to several weeks. As the team leader, you will also consult with clients and manage some projects in addition to providing supervisory and thought leadership to the team.

Our clients ask the Computational Consulting team to solve challenging problems with data collection, scientific computing, text manipulation, large scale data analysis, and process acceleration. For example, the team might write code to automate the collection of research data, create structured datasets from unstructured sources, implement advanced machine-learning or generative-AI algorithms, or leverage cloud-based tools to accelerate analysis of very large datasets. Your team also plays an important role in helping Kellogg meet challenges related to research replicability and Open Science.

As the team lead, you will guide the strategic evolution of the research computing environment at Kellogg and the services your team provides. You will set high standards for service and help your team to meet them. You will anticipate emerging needs in the computational social sciences and proactively develop practical plans to address them. You will also build and maintain healthy working relationships with our technology partners.

Expect to work with bright minds on challenging problems, continually evaluate emerging technologies, and apply new techniques to solve research problems. As these technologies and research questions evolve, so will your role and the roles of your team.

Specific Responsibilities:

Lead the Computational Research Consulting Team

• Provide guidance, management, and supervision to a team of 3-5 Computational Research Consultants or similar roles, while setting expectations and delivering regular feedback to deliver high-quality support.
• Provide feedback on a regular basis and conduct the year-end performance evaluations for your direct reports.
• Encourage team members to continuously develop their skills.
• Provide computational support services to researchers as appropriate.

Strategic Planning

• Identify and prioritize computational initiatives that expand capabilities for research at Kellogg.
• Track usage in the School's research computing environments, and proactively develop plans to manage growing demands on these systems.
• Identify trends and opportunities for the team to provide new or improved types of support for researchers.
• Organize and drive initiatives to prototype and evaluate new support resources and service offerings.
• Assist or partner with faculty and staff in preparation and planning for data-aided research projects.
• Continue professional development in areas necessary to perform duties related to the job, such as leadership, strategy, data management, and data science.

Community Development and Training

• Lead outreach efforts with new faculty to promote mutual understanding of their support needs and the team's support capabilities.
• Build and maintain strong working relationships with partners in IT organizations to deliver high performance computing infrastructure on an ongoing basis.
• Oversee the creation and delivery of documentation, guides, and training materials which help faculty, students, and staff to develop the data and computational skills needed to perform research.
• Lead workshops and training sessions to share advanced computational techniques and best practices with the research community.
• Develop and lead orientation sessions with new faculty, PhD students, postdoctoral, and predoctoral researchers.

Miscellaneous

Performs other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications: (Education, experience, and any other certifications or clearances)

• Advanced degree (M.A. or M.S. minimum, Ph.D preferred) with a research component in any quantitative field.
• Prior experience in a supervisory role, successfully organizing team efforts, delegating tasks, and managing toward successful group outcomes.
• Experience in managing projects from end-to-end and working through others.
• Demonstrated track record of influencing outcomes across organizational boundaries and without direct authority.
• At least 7 years' experience in working in data science, data management, data analysis, and/or software development roles.
• Familiarity with research data lifecycle, grant or publication requirements for data, information security levels, and common analytic techniques in the computational social sciences.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills to communicate with faculty, students, colleagues, and leaders.
• Demonstrated customer service excellence.
• Ability to act on own initiative to further organizational and University goals.
• Commitment to continual learning and development.

Preferred Qualifications: (Education and experience)

• Prior experience having been responsible for setting and managing the budgets for projects and/or teams.
• Ability to proactively and constructively provide timely feedback to improve unit performance.
• Prior experience working with Amazon Web Services resources such as Athena, EC2, IAM, and S3.
• Hands-on experience using popular machine learning or deep learning frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Working knowledge of contemporary large language models, transformers, and generative AI model selection and prompting strategies.
• Prior experience with automating data management and ETL tasks, version control, and unit testing.
• Familiarity with principles of Open Science

Target hiring range for this position will be $119,000 - $140,000 per year. Offered salary will be determined by the applicant's education, experience, knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.

Benefits:
At Northwestern, we are proud to provide meaningful, competitive, high-quality health care plans, retirement benefits, tuition discounts and more! Visit us at https://www.northwestern.edu/hr/benefits/index.html to learn more.

Work-Life and Wellness:
Northwestern offers comprehensive programs and services to help you and your family navigate life's challenges and opportunities, and adopt and maintain healthy lifestyles.
We support flexible work arrangements where possible and programs to help you locate and pay for quality, affordable childcare and senior/adult care. Visit us at https://www.northwestern.edu/hr/benefits/work-life/index.html to learn more.

Professional Growth & Development:
Northwestern supports employee career development in all circumstances whether your workspace is on campus or at home. If you're interested in developing your professional potential or continuing your formal education, we offer a variety of tools and resources. Visit us at https://www.northwestern.edu/hr/learning/index.html to learn more.

Northwestern University is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics, including disability and veteran status. View Northwestern's non-discrimination statement. Job applicants who wish to request an accommodation in the application or hiring process should contact the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance. View additional information on the accommodations process.

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