Assistant Secretary

Salary: €114,893 - €131,471 per annum pro rata for part time/short term roles (applicable to new entrants effective from January, 2011) and in accordance with the terms and conditions of the QA321 University’s Remuneration & Payroll Policy.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

The Director of AI Factory Antenna in Ireland (AIF IRL-Antenna) is a senior leadership role in ICHEC. Due to the strategic nature of the network of EuroHPC AI Factories and their Antennas (https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/ai-factories_en), the role entails responsibilities to implement the AIF IRL-Antenna as defined in the proposal and Grant Agreement, with duties spanning three domains: Strategy & Policy Alignment, Coordination & Technical Leadership, Stakeholder & Ecosystem Engagement:

Strategy & Policy Alignment

• Track and ensure alignment of AIF IRL-Antenna activities and direction with national and EU strategies and policies related to AI and digital services for enterprises and public sector, particularly related to AI Factories, Gigafactories and Antennas.

• Engage with AIF IRL-Antenna National Advisory Group for their inputs on strategy and policy matters. The Advisory Group will be composed of the Government Steering Board (led by DFHERIS with other relevant Departments and Agencies), User Advisory Form (with representatives from enterprise and public sector organisations), and Executive Leaderships at ICHEC and CeADAR.

• Provide advice on AI-related EU strategies, initiatives and their implementation, including identification of opportunities for Ireland (e.g., AI Factories, AI Gigafactories, and EU AI Act), in alignment with ICHEC’s advisory on broader Advanced Computing (HPC, Data, AI, Quantum) topics to relevant Government Departments (mostly D/FHERIS and D/ETE) and State Bodies (mostly IDA and EI).

• Advise ICHEC Director and contribute to development of the Centre’s Strategy on national and EU AI-related topics and opportunities linked to Advanced Computing.

• Engage with the rest of ICHEC senior leadership to align AI topics with broader Advanced Computing related strategies, activities and opportunities.

• Demonstrable experience of successfully leading and managing people, including performance management, staff development and fostering a high-performing team culture.

Coordination & Technical Leadership

• Coordinate AIF IRL-Antenna teams and staff across ICHEC and CeADAR, particularly via leads of the following IRL-Antenna teams: Ecosystem Engagement, Linking & Networking, Resources Development, Support Services, and Outreach.

• Lead AIF IRL-Antenna with Project Manager and internal leads in implementation of processes, resource allocation and performance in the Programme across ICHEC and CeADAR (ca. 23 staff with 14 at ICHEC and 9 at CeADAR), including governance, quality assurance and risk management.

• Coordinate the linking of AIF IRL-Antenna with the two linked AI Factories (AIF France and AIF Luxembourg) for resource sharing and joint activities (as per the two MoUs). Lead the establishment and strengthening of networking with the other EuroHPC AI Factories and their Antennas.

• Coordinate with ICHEC Infrastructure and Technical Managers to provide overarching AIF IRL-Antenna focused requirements/directions to ICHEC Technical Teams (Systems Administration, Platform Engineering, Performance Engineering) and domains teams (Climate Informatics, Geospatial Informatics, Health Informatics, Quantum-HPC, AI & Data Analytics) for resource development, competence and capacity building.

• Periodically report (on technical and operational matters) to AIF IRL-Antenna funders (EuroHPC and DFHERIS/HEA as per Grant Agreements) and ICHEC Leadership, with support from Project Manager.

Stakeholder & Ecosystem Engagement

• Lead establishment of and engagement with the AIF IRL-Antenna User Advisory Forum composed of industry leads and strategic representatives from across the enterprise, public sector and research ecosystem for requirements alignment and outreach on IRL-Antenna resources and services.

• Direct the strategic approach and activities for business development and outreach to engage with potential customers of the AIF IRL-Antenna (particularly, startups and SMEs), particularly by linking with national/EU ecosystems and stakeholders (e.g., enterprise accelerators, industry groups).

• Establish and direct strategic partnerships with relevant technology providers and partners across national and international enterprises and research organisations (e.g., in AI, HPC, Data infrastructures, tools, skills development).

• Coordinate the engagement of AIF IRL-Antenna with European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs), EuroHPC National Competence Centres (EuroCCs), Testing & Experimentation Facilities (TEFs).

Requirements for the Role:

The successful candidate will demonstrate the eligibility requirements below in terms of qualification, skills and experience:

Essential Criteria

An MSc in Computer Science (or equivalent).

A minimum of 10 years of professional experience related to high-performance software systems architecture, development oriented towards AI. This should include a minimum of 5 years of experience in leading multi-disciplinary teams to develop and deliver enterprise solutions and services to customers in industry and/or public sector for complex and large-scale software systems related to AI, Data Analytics, HPC, computational modelling.

Experience in multi-partner project technical and resource coordination and management (incl. financial oversight and reporting to funders and other stakeholders).

Demonstrable experience of engaging with stakeholders and customers on topics related to technical requirements such as specifications, negotiating projects scopes and workplans.

Leadership expertise in HPC and/or Cloud software solutions development, optimisation, and performance analysis on distributed and/or shared memory clusters with multidisciplinary teams – at least four of the following: IT systems administrators, platform (software system developers and DevOps engineers), performance engineers, computational scientists, domain specialists.

Knowledge of EU digital strategies, programmes and ecosystem related to AI and priority sectors of the AIF IRL-Antenna (environment, climate, Earth Observation, DeepTech, Life Science, Health).

Desirable Criteria

Demonstrable experience in mentorship and development of team members in the context of projects as well as capacity building for an organisation’s programmes.

Deep knowledge of the technology start-up ecosystem in Ireland.

Experience in scalable computational modelling, data management, workflow orchestration in areas related to visualisation, digital twins.

Knowledge of national, European and/or global activities/initiatives related to HPC, federated data management, digital twins (e.g. SFI Challenges, EuroHPC, Destination Earth, Common European Data Spaces, European Open Science Cloud).

Experience in preparation of funding grants (public competitive or commercial), set up and execution of projects under secured funding.

The above criteria will be utilised to shortlist and select candidates for interview.