NPPS Leadership Team

[Torre Wenaus <wenaus AT gmail.com>]

Hi all,

Hong has approved (today) going ahead with a further opening targeting Zhaoyu Yang. Thank you all for your support in making this happen! Here is how I've summarized things for HR... comments welcome...

Hi Suzanne,

Here’s the plan, for your comments. We’ve completed interviews for 2886 and 2984. 

 

All four candidates interviewed are above threshold for hires, resources permitting. Unfortunately resources don’t permit to hire four, but (if the candidates accept) we have extremely strong choices for the two open positions. In addition we’ve assembled the resources to hire a third into the same job profile as these positions, so as discussed we would like to make two hires on posting 2886 rather than one. Hong has approved the additional target and hire on 2886; at his request I’ve sent him a memo making the formal request.

 

Posting 2886 (BNL based PanDA developer hire):

Our choice is Wen Guan. He is a perfect fit to the job requirements, prominent among which is supporting Rubin with a quick startup ramp. Wen is already working effectively with Rubin (both our perception and that of Rubin leadership) and is the lead developer of iDDS which is essential for Rubin workflows (and very important to ATLAS as well). He’s willing to relocate to BNL in a year or so (I used to say “when the world stabilizes” but we should probably leave out that criterion). 

 

Posting 2984 (BNL or CERN based PanDA developer hire):

Our choice is Fernando Barreiro Megino. Fernando is a PanDA developer on the core team, and plays the crucial role as the right hand man of the lead developer, Tadashi Maeno (BNL NPPS). Next to Tadashi, Fernando is most deeply knowledgeable about PanDA. Fernando is already active in supporting Rubin and sPHENIX PanDA use as well as ATLAS. Having him as a BNL NPPS person will add great strength, stability and expertise to our PanDA team.

 

Eddie Karavakis is a strong candidate for 2984 (he wishes to remain based in Europe for the near/mid term), highly experienced with PanDA and HEP distributed software in general, but in our ranking slightly below Wen and Fernando. Should Fernando not accept, Eddie would be an excellent hire for 2984.

 

Second target on 2886 (BNL based PanDA (and general) developer with a focus on analysis/experiment support):

We had the good fortune to interview an extremely impressive candidate Zhaoyu Yang, too junior for the positions above but who would be a great asset to the group, the department and our experimental programs. She accumulated substantial experience in HEP analysis and software until while at the postdoc level she left the workforce in 2013 to care for a new child with health issues. She is now returning to the workforce. Zhaoyu gave the most impressive performance in her interview, not least thanks to her depth of experience and knowledge of both scientific software and physics research.  The medium to long-term benefit to NPPS and BNL of hiring her are very clear and appreciated by the entire committee.  The issue is that, due to a career break, she would require significant ramp-up time which, while completely justifiable in the medium to long-term, would have short term consequences for BNL’s responsibilities to Rubin.  Equally we believe her return to the workforce is a priority for her and one that she is prioritizing, i.e. she is unlikely to remain available on the job market.  The committee feels this unique situation requires our urgent action to gain this person for BNL and NPPS.  We would ideally like to find a way to bring her back into the workforce in a way that balances short-term priorities with the longer term benefit to BNL, in line with the lab’s attempts to be as inclusive as possible to all talent. Accordingly, we’ve put together this plan, offering the open positions to outstandingly qualified, seasoned candidates with a quick ramp time, and assembling the resources for a further target on 2886, to make an offer to Zhaoyu.

 

Looking forward to comments from you all.

 

  Torre

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-- Torre Wenaus, BNL NPPS Group, ATLAS Experiment

-- BNL 510A 1-222 | 631-681-7892 |  wenaus AT gmail.com | npps.bnl.gov | wenaus.com

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