Freelance High Performance Computing Engineer Jobs in Wisconsin

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Job Category: Academic Staff
Employment Type: Regular
Job Profile: DevOps Engineer III
Job Summary:
The Wisconsin Health Data Hub (WHDH), funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA), is developing a secure, cloud-native data platform designed to deliver high-quality real-world data to support biomedical research, advanced analytics, and AI-driven discovery.
The Cloud Infrastructure Architect provides technical leadership responsible for designing, implementing, and automating the infrastructure, deployment pipelines, and operational environment of WHDH's data platform. This role ensures the secure, scalable, and highly available integration of infrastructure components supporting complex clinical and research data assets across a cloud-based environment. The position automates environments for advanced analytics, machine learning, and federated research capabilities while strictly maintaining compliance with HIPAA and institutional data security standards.
Working closely with data solutions architects, data engineers, AI specialists, and security leaders, the Cloud Infrastructure Architect will translate architectural and operational requirements into scalable Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions and robust CI/CD practices that support WHDH's long-term platform strategy.
Key Responsibilities
Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Orchestration
• Design and implement the scalable, secure, cloud-native infrastructure framework supporting WHDH's data platform using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Develop and maintain automated, elastic environments capable of ingesting, harmonizing, storing, and delivering massive structured and unstructured health datasets.
• Optimize containerized environments and orchestration layers (e.g., Kubernetes, ECS) to seamlessly support complex research workflows and distributed computing.
• Architect high-performance computing environments and automated provisioning pipelines tailored for AI, machine learning, and large-scale data analysis.
Deployment Pipelines and Continuous Integration (CI/CD)
• Build and manage secure, automated CI/CD pipelines for data engineering workflows, application code, and infrastructure deployments.
• Enable reliable, continuous deployment methodologies that ensure zero-downtime updates and seamless system testing across health systems and research institutions.
• Implement operational monitoring, logging, and alerting systems (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack) to proactively ensure platform reliability, uptime, and performance.
DevSecOps and Compliance Automation
• Bake strict security controls into the automated provisioning process, ensuring end-to-end alignment with HIPAA, institutional policies, and research data security standards.
• Establish best practices for DevSecOps, including automated vulnerability scanning, secret management, and compliance-as-code.
Design and maintain immutable infrastructure patterns that enforce granular access control, precise audit logging, and strict data governance across the WHDH ecosystem.
It is anticipated that this position will be remote and requires work be performed at an offsite, non-campus work location. The selected candidate must reside within the State of Wisconsin or move to the State within a reasonable time frame from the start date of the position.
Key Job Responsibilities:

• Architects and manages containerized and distributed computing platforms that enable advanced analytics, machine learning, AI-driven research workloads, and high-performance data processing in secure cloud environments.

• Collaborates with engineers, data scientists, architects, and research stakeholders to deliver scalable platform solutions that enable authorized users to securely access, process, and analyze distributed biomedical datasets.

• Builds and optimizes observability frameworks, including monitoring, logging, alerting, and performance management solutions, to ensure system health, resiliency, and rapid incident response.

• Manages, maintains, selects, and develops automation tools and infrastructure, including security configurations

• Performs integration, migration, configuration, and security of existing applications and services into automated infrastructures

• Serves as a subject matter expert to internal stakeholders, providing guidance and training to staff

• Designs and implements platform capabilities that support secure data sharing, federated access, identity and access management, and privacy-preserving workflows while maintaining rigorous security and governance controls.

• Serves as technical lead for one or more aspects of the system

• Develops, programs, and/or deploys automation workflows for deployment, configuration, and/or monitoring of systems/services

• Analyzes requirements and communicates and coordinates with staff and internal stakeholders related to the system and/or project

Department:
School of Medicine and Public Health, Office of Informatics, Wisconsin Health Data Hub.
The Wisconsin Health Data Hub (WHDH) is a grant-funded initiative within the Information and Information Technology (IIT) Division at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. WHDH brings together a multidisciplinary team of technologists responsible for designing, implementing, and operating a secure data enclave that supports the responsible use of real-world health data for biomedical research.
The WHDH team develops and manages a scalable data platform that enables researchers to efficiently access, integrate, and analyze large-scale health datasets from participating health systems. By providing advanced data services, governance frameworks, and analytical capabilities, WHDH accelerates the research lifecycle-from project conception and data acquisition to analysis and discovery-while ensuring compliance with applicable regulatory, privacy, and security requirements.
Compensation:
The starting salary for the position is $115,000 annually; but is negotiable based on experience and qualifications.
Employees in this position can expect to receive benefits such as generous vacation, holidays, and sick leave; competitive insurances and savings accounts; retirement benefits. For more information, refer to the campus benefits webpage.
SMPH Faculty /Academic Staff Benefits Flyer 2026
Required Qualifications:

• 8 years of experience designing, implementing, and maintaining enterprise-scale cloud infrastructure and automated environments.

• Expertise with cloud-native platform orchestration (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) and managing infrastructure for distributed data solutions or containerized environments (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker).

• Experience designing secure CI/CD deployment pipelines, automation workflows, and robust infrastructure integration frameworks.

• Familiarity with healthcare or biomedical research data environments and relevant regulatory security compliance (e.g., HIPAA).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience implementing DevSecOps practices, cloud-native security controls, and compliance-as-code within regulated healthcare data standards or interoperability frameworks.

• Experience building and optimizing infrastructure to support AI/ML pipelines, MLOps, and advanced analytics workloads.

• Expertise with securing and automating infrastructure for federated data platforms and multi-institutional data collaborations.

• Experience working in federally funded research programs or academic research environments.

• Strong documentation skills (e.g., creating architecture diagrams, runbooks) and proven technical leadership skills.

Education:
Bachelor's degree preferred; focus in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, or a related technical field preferred
How to Apply:
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To apply for this position, select either "I am a current employee" or "I am not a current employee" under Apply Now. You will then be prompted to upload your application materials.
Important: The application has only one attachment field. Upload the following documents in that field, either as a single combined file or as multiple files in the same upload area.
• Cover letter (required)
• Resume (required)
Your cover letter should address how your training and experience aligns with the required and preferred qualifications listed above. Application reviewers will rely on these written materials to determine which applicants move forward in the process. References will be requested from final candidates. All applicants will be notified once the search concludes and a candidate is selected.
University sponsorship is not available for this position, including transfers of sponsorship and TN visas.The selected applicant will be responsible for ensuring their continuous eligibility to work in the United States (i.e. a citizen or national of the United States, a lawful permanent resident, a foreign national authorized to work in the United States without the need of an employer sponsorship) on or before the effective date of appointment.This position is an ongoing position that will require continuous work eligibility.If you are selected for this position you must provide proof of work authorization and eligibility to work.
Contact Information:
Cody Roekle, croekle@wisc.edu, 16082637676
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Diversity is a source of strength, creativity, and innovation for UW-Madison. We value the contributions of each person and respect the profound ways their identity, culture, background, experience, status, abilities, and opinion enrich the university community. We commit ourselves to the pursuit of excellence in teaching, research, outreach, and diversity as inextricably linked goals.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison fulfills its public mission by creating a welcoming and inclusive community for people from every background - people who as students, faculty, and staff serve Wisconsin and the world.
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Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, including but not limited to, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, pregnancy, disability, or status as a protected veteran and other bases as defined by federal regulations and UW System policies. We promote excellence by acknowledging skills and expertise from all backgroundsand encourage all qualified individuals to apply. For more information regarding applicant and employee rights and to view federal and state required postings, visit the Human Resources Workplace Poster website.
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