I’m Patrick Finnegan, I have been building HPC systems for Purdue for more than two decades. I started with the first centralized Linux clusters, mostly focusing on hardware integration, and next generation data centers.

I am the Lead Systems Engineer. I make sure that we are able to deploy next-generation cutting edge HPC systems to enable research at Purdue and beyond.

I mostly focus on project management, and systems integration, but I am a generalist and can help with most any problem anywhere from Power and Plumbing, to Networking, Storage and beyond.

I wish that I knew to trust my instincts, and not let people get in my way of getting things done.

I'm always learning about the latest technology, so I can lead up and coming technical staff to do their best.

Nothing helps me focus like an imminent deadline. My main trick is picking the highest priority fire, and working on that.

I can focus on any problem, and break it down until I can find what I need to find for a solution. My ADHD helps me the most to hyper focus on the most critical problem.

My first job as a student was a C++ developer in high school. my first full-time job was at RCAC.

The worst job I've had was working for a terrible manager, who kept randomly chnaging priorities., who refused to focus the team on the real priorities.

While I worked for Data Centers, I was able to bridge gaps, and help accomplish what RCAC needed done. My manager at the time was very supportive, even if I had to bend or break a few guidelines to get things done correctly.

My journey to this career was shaped by my curiosity and love for solving problems. I realized my passion for computer science and decided to pursue it seriously.I looked through PUCC website, and saw all of the details about the supercomputers that were run at the time. I thought "Hey those would be neat to be able to touch." When I got the opportunity to ba student employee, I jumped at it, and I have been working at or for Research Computing ever since.

New technology is fun, but I really enjoy being able to teach and work with up and coming technology talents.

HPC has become almost pedestrian, far reaching beyond just scientific applications, to things including Political Sciences and Literature.

As a consulting job, I was 1/3 of a 3 person team that ran the HPC systems for DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge, a $50M+ project in 2015-16, which had 7 teams competing to build AI systems that played "capture the flag" against each other, finding and defending security vulnerabilities.

The biggest misconception is that HPC systems are anything like Enterprise IT systems. As an HPC systems engineer, I have to understand the full stack from the hardware, networking, storage, down to the power and cooling and how they're different than enterprise systems.

I helped design, build, and deploy Anvil.

I have a BSCompE from Purdue, am the staff advisor for the Purdue Linux Users Group, and am the Logistics Team Lead for SCinet at the SC Conference Series, and have given several talks on Vintage computing. I have been involved with publications and grant proposals around Anvil and other RCAC resources.

I am a licensed Master Electrician, have DJed drag shows, and am a part of the small team that runs the biggest Vintage Computer Festival event in the world-VCF/Midwest.

I think it is important to spread my knowledge to help guide the future of HPC.

HPC is a career niche that isn't going away anytime soon, and can be both fun to work on, and has lots of potential careers opportunities that pay well.

1. What do you hope the REU gets out of the program?

   I hope the REU gets to see what possibilites there are in HPC.

2. How can this help them in their college career?

   College courses don't have the opportunity to work on niches like this.

More and more people will use HPC.

• Where do you see your specialty in HPC in the next 10 years?

  I don't see it going anywhere. As the HPC systems get more sophisticated, the integration of them will only be more important.

Yes, I have. I started out as Research Computing's first student employee

1. What was your experience?

   It was great learning from people who had worked on older systems, but everything we work on was brand new technology, that no one really had worked on, so I got to help chart the course for RCAC.

2. What did you learn?

   Everything that I did I learned from.

3. How did this propel you into your future current job?

   I mostly went from doing the same thing for my student job to doing the same thing as a full-time employee.