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.

Below you can find three internship topics. In your application please kindly sate which is your prefered internship topic.

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

• Linux and git usage and configuration
• Programming with scripting languages (e.g. Bash or Python)
• REST APIs familiarity
• Problem decomposition
• Good communication skills
• Beneficial Skills:
  • CI-CD pipelines building
  • Automated testing
  • Linux containers orchestration
  • Monitoring frameworks

Degree

• Last years of BSc or MSc student in computer science or similar field

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

• Explore the use of CUDA cooperative groups and asynchronous barriers to implement simultaneous tree traversal with a producer-consumer pattern on GPUs
• Apply the new implementation to a collision detection problem

Expected duration of Master Internship

• 4–6 months

Requirements

• Strong C++ skills.
• GPU programming experience (CUDA, HIP, SYCL) is beneficial.

Degree

• MSc student in computer science or computational science and engineering.

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: 

• Embedding the chatbot agent into the docs.cscs.ch search bar. 
• Generating tentative responses for incoming Jira Service Desk tickets. 
• Exploring methods to compare answers produced by leading RAG/LLM systems. 
• Improving the chatbot’s response quality by collecting user feedback. 
• Investigating approaches to detect similar, repetitive, or contradictory information within the corporate documentation. 

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 

• Solid knowledge of Python ML frameworks and theoretical knowledge in LLM 
• Independent and motivated 
• Strong problem-solving skills 
• Basic understanding of Linux, Kubernetes, and inference services is beneficial  
• System engineering skills are beneficial 

Degree 

• Last year BSc or currently MSc in computer science, ML, or similar field 
• Must be enrolled at a Swiss university for the duration of the internship 

Work location 

Zürich or Lugano

• For the above positions students must be enrolled in a Swiss University Master level (or final year Bachelor) and for Third Country nationals the internship must be a mandatory part of their university curriculum.
• The student must be attending the university in person (not on-line) and must be living in Switzerland. In addition the Masters cannot be already concluded.
• The candidate must be a student in one of the following fields: Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics or related fields. Ph.D. students will not be considered
• The ideal candidate is a team player and feels comfortable working in an international environment in the heart of Lugano, Canton of Ticino or in Zürich in Switzerland. Excellent command of written and spoken English (our official working language) is a must. Full-time on-site work is required.
• Additional rules for Third Country Nationals: For 3rd Country Nationals the internship must be a mandatory internship and it must be start during the semester. However, it can flow into the semester holidays. For certain nationalities additional controlls could become necessary.

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

• ETH Zurich is a family-friendly employer with excellent and flexible working conditions.
• You can look forward to an exciting working environment, cultural diversity, and attractive offers and benefits.
• We value the diversity of our team, and to further enhance our workforce's diversity, we encourage women to apply.
• We offer internships of 2-6 months. During this period the intern will be mentored by and collaborating with HPC experts in the centre. A salary of 2’500.00 CHF/month is granted.

We look forward to receiving your complete online application, which we ask you to refer to Stephanie Frequente, HR Partner.

• A pdf letter of motivation
• PDF CV
• Diplomas in PDF
• Employment certificates in PDF

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).

Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via email or postal services will not be considered.

For further information, please visit our website  or contact Dr Guilherme Peretti-Pezzi, Write an email.