Internships At CSCS - The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

Internships at CSCS - the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

ETH Zürich – Lugano

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Internships at CSCS - the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) develops and operates cutting-edge, high-performance computing (HPC) systems as an essential service facility for science. The centre enables world-class research through its scientific user lab, which is available to domestic and international researchers in academia, industry, and the business sector. The centre is operated by ETH Zurich and has offices in Lugano (headquarters) and Zurich.

Job description

Below you can find three internship topics. In your application please kindly sate which is your prefered internship topic. You can choose up to two prefered topics.

Topic A : Automation and Monitoring for an Internal Development Platform

Abstract

The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) develops and operates a high-performance computing and data research infrastructure that supports world-class science in Switzerland. To achieve this mission, multiple specialized engineering teams must collaborate effectively, utilizing a dynamic set of processes and tools for developing and operating their solutions. For effective collaboration, an integrated and harmonized Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC)—covering planning, documentation, coding, building, testing, and monitoring — is essential. The platform team responsible for core SDLC services at the center is seeking a motivated intern to join them.

The selected candidate will have the opportunity to make tangible improvements to CSCS's internal development platform. Working alongside experienced system administrators and software engineers, the intern will gain hands‑on experience with automation, CI / CD pipeline runners, containerized deployments, observability, and best practices in DevOps. The goal of the internship is to evolve a monitoring dashboard that meets the operational needs of the platform team by integrating essential operational and security information from deployments of tools like GitLab, JFrog, Vault, Jira and Confluence. This work will involve refining centralized logging, automating validations and revisiting key DORA and SRE metrics and their notifications. There is room for adjusting the focus within the activities based on the candidate's interests (e.g. Containers, security, monitoring, etc.).

Expected duration of Master Internship

• 4 months

Requirements

CI‑CD pipelines building

Degree

Work location

Zürich or Lugano

Topic B : Simultaneous tree traversal with Producer-Consumer pattern on GPUs

Abstract

Simultaneous tree traversal, also referred to as dual tree traversal, can be applied to a wide range of problems from collision detection in 3D computer graphics to computational physics and the N-body problem.

In the Fast Multipole Method, simultaneous traversal is one of the key ingredients that allow the method to maintain linear O(n) scaling even when particle distributions are highly irregular.

On GPUs, simultaneous tree traversal is difficult to implement efficiently, because straight‑forward approaches typically lead to high execution divergence. With the introduction of advanced thread‑synchronization features in the CUDA standard though, parallel patterns, such as producer‑consumer, have become feasible on GPUs.  such as cooperative groups and asynchronous barriers,

The goal of this internship is to

Expected duration of Master Internship

Requirements

Degree

Work location

Zürich

Topic C : CHatterbox : A RAG-Powered Chatbot for Documentation and Support at CSCS

Abstract

The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) provides high‑performance computing services for Swiss researchers, supporting activities ranging from high‑resolution simulations to complex data analyses. To ensure service quality and continuity, CSCS maintains extensive internal documentation in Confluence, a problem‑solving knowledge base in Jira Service Desk, and publicly accessible user documentation built with Material for MkDocs. Recently, CSCS developed a prototype chatbot service, CHatterbox, based on Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) technologies. The service currently operates internally for CSCS staff, with Slack serving as the interactive frontend.

We are looking for a motivated candidate who is interested in contributing to the further development and extension of the CHatterbox service. The proposed internship project includes the following lines of work :

docs.cscs.ch

search bar.

We estimate an even split between the technical and research components of the project. The technical work will focus on improving the Kubernetes deployment, modifying the CHatterbox code base, and further integrating the service with Jira and Confluence. The research component will concentrate on analysing the behaviour and response quality of the RAG / LLM chatbot.

The project is centred around the use of Large Language Models, and the ideal candidate should have a strong background in AI / ML and experience with Python‑based machine learning frameworks. A solid understanding of Linux systems and containerized deployment within Kubernetes is a strong asset. The candidate should be independent, motivated, and eager to work in a flexible, international environment.

Expected duration of the Master Internship

4 months minimum, 6 months preferable

Requirements

Degree

Work location

Zürich or Lugano

Profile

We offer

CSCS values autonomy, ownership, and continuous learning. Students can gain specialised hands‑on experience through various challenging activities typical of the HPC field.

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 find out 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 only take applications with pdf documents into consideration.

As there is a high demand for the internships in certain periods and we can only offer 2 internships per quarter, kindly also state your availability (prefered time frame for the internship).

About ETH Zürich

ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specialising in science and technology. We are renowned for our excellent education, cutting‑edge fundamental research and direct transfer of new knowledge into society. Over 30,000 people from more than 120 countries find our university to be a place that promotes independent thinking and an environment that inspires excellence. Located in the heart of Europe, yet forging connections all over the world, we work together to develop solutions for the global challenges of today and tomorrow.