#MyPathToHPC – Cristina works as data systems architect

The HPC community is very diverse – as are the jobs in the field – and there are many paths into HPC. In this mini-series we will share our personal journeys into HPC. We will describe our roles and explain how we got to our current positions.

I saw a video the other day from a dance teacher, talking about a book by some well-known dancers. In it they wrote about their path into dancing, how it all came to be, and how delusional they were going into it, because it’s so frigging difficult to make a name for yourself and be successful. The chances are so low that you wouldn’t even bother trying unless you were deeply delusional. But they actually credited being delusional for their success. And that got me thinking, that maybe I’ve been a bit delusional (or stupid, or naive, or all of those together) many times in my life, and it might have helped me, somehow. Not that everything always went super smoothly or perfectly, but yeah, on the grand scale of things, I think it all ended up pretty well.

So, I studied Telecommunications Engineering at the UPV in Valencia, Spain. Lots of suffering, nearly gave up, but I’m stubborn and thought: yeah, it’s hard now, but later it’ll get better (delusional?). I mostly hated the electronics part, mostly loved the computer-related parts. I spent a year and a bit abroad at NTNU in Trondheim during my master's. I have to admit, it was a nearly random, last-minute decision to choose that uni and city, the NIGHT before the deadline. I could have ended up in Prague; I nearly did. That‘s what I was telling everyone where I was going. But at the end, I didn’t. And honestly, I don’t even know why I changed my mind anymore.

So there I was, at a university in cold Norway, improving my (not really great at the time) English, trying (and failing) to learn Norwegian, meeting my now-husband, a German, still finishing his studies in Aachen, and yep, I thought: I’ve got a master’s degree now, let’s try to find a job in Germany, why not? My friends thought I was delusional and more or less politely told me so, which I more or less politely ignored.

I applied to several jobs in the region around Aachen, including at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre. It sounded interesting: grid computing, which ended up being more about storage stuff and long-term archiving. I didn’t actually have much hope when I applied, because I thought I wasn’t good enough, but again, I thought, why not? I’ve got nothing to lose. And they offered me a position which of course I took! It wasn’t until much later that I realized: I didn’t know how much I didn’t know. But I learned along the way, I liked it, and I was really motivated.

My then-boss made it clear that if I wanted to stay in Germany long-term, I should learn German. The naive part of me immediately thought: yep, absolutely, no problem. And I have to say, yes, I managed. But yes, it was very hard for chatty me not to be able to spontaneously communicate with people, specially at the beginning. VERY HARD. I nearly gave up—with the language, the job, the everything—but at the end didn’t. And here I am, 16 years later.

Right now, I’m really happy where I am, and sometimes I still get this rush of disbelief. I mean, I would have never guessed I’d end up working in HPC, mostly because I had absolutely no clue what HPC even meant. I kind of remember, in a computer architecture course about a lifetime ago, hearing about a list of the fastest supercomputers in the world, and it kind of stuck with me because, woooow, mind-blowing for small-thinking me. And now… here I am.

I have been involved in European projects like EUDAT (dealing with resource provisioning), and the DEEP projects (dealing with parallel file systems). I was part of the core team that initially developed the LOFAR Long Term Archive in Jülich. I continue to work on the day-to-day operations of this archive (I am sys admin at core with a liking to talking to people, so kind of a weird mix) and currently lead the Operation & Development Team Technical Services. I love my job (most of the time). But still, I also have to say: probably the best part of it is my wonderful colleagues.

And I have to include a little digression here—open brackets, final remark, I’m not sure what to call it—because lately I’ve been noticing (or maybe I’m just more aware now) and getting mildly annoyed by the unrealistic portrayals of women in science. You know, those extraordinary superwomen (LinkedIn is showing me a bunch of them lately). I’m not saying: don’t show them. I’m saying: also show the “normal” women who are just doing science. Because trying to imitate those wonder women feels impossible and discouraging. You can do science and cool things without needing to be the next Nobel Prize winner. Of course you can aspire to greatness, but aspiring to a regular, fulfilling life is also totally OK.

And that is why I decided to write this blog post how I did, trying to explain the path to HPC of a “normal” woman, with a healthy tiny bit of weirdness, but hey, everyone has some, after all.

PS1: I started writing this blog post three times, and three times I deleted everything and started again. I didn’t want it to be too boring, too weird, too superficial… let me know if I succeeded.

PS2: If you still haven’t had enough: here I also talk about networks and role models and more (in German).

PS3: And if somehow you are really bored and don't know what to do with your time today, more to read here (in German).