About BSC
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is the leading supercomputing center in Spain. It houses MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, was a founding and hosting member of the former European HPC infrastructure PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and is now hosting entity for EuroHPC JU, the Joint Undertaking that leads large-scale investments and HPC provision in Europe. The mission of BSC is to research, develop and manage information technologies in order to facilitate scientific progress. BSC combines HPC service provision and R&D into both computer and computational science (life, earth and engineering sciences) under one roof, and currently has over 1000 staff from 60 countries.
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We are particularly interested for this role in the strengths and lived experiences of women and underrepresented groups to help us avoid perpetuating biases and oversights in science and IT research. In instances of equal merit, the incorporation of the under-represented sex will be favoured.
We promote Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, fostering an environment where each and every one of us is appreciated for who we are, regardless of our differences.
If you consider that you do not meet all the requirements, we encourage you to continue applying for the job offer. We value diversity of experiences and skills, and you could bring unique perspectives to our team.
Context And Mission
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) is seeking a highly capable professional to support the Associate Director in strengthening the operation of the Associate Director’s Office and ensuring that the institution’s strategic priorities are translated into coordinated execution across the organization.
The Chief of Staff will act as a trusted advisor, coordination lead, and execution partner to the Associate Director. The role combines strategic judgment, institutional awareness, strong writing and communication skills, and the ability to work across scientific, technical, administrative, and external stakeholder communities.
This position is intended for a person who can bring structure, follow-through, and clarity to a complex research institution, helping the Associate Director prepare decisions, align teams, manage critical relationships, and ensure that important commitments move forward.
Key Duties
- Serve as a strategic advisor to the Associate Director, helping translate institutional priorities into clear actions, decisions, and follow-up mechanisms.
- Support the management of the Associate Director’s priorities and agenda, helping filter, organize, and prioritize internal and external requests according to institutional impact.
- Support the Associate Director to coordinate across scientific areas, engineering teams, administration, communications, legal, finance, institutional relations, and other units to ensure alignment and effective execution.
- Track strategic projects and institutional initiatives, maintaining clarity on objectives, owners, milestones, dependencies, risks, and progress.
- Design and maintain the operating rhythm of the Associate Director’s Office, including leadership meetings, preparation of agendas, actionable minutes, and structured follow-up of decisions.
- Prepare the Associate Director for high-stakes meetings with governments, public institutions, European bodies, companies, universities, research centers, and other strategic partners.
- Ensure that agreements, decisions, and commitments made by the Associate Director or leadership bodies are converted into concrete actions and followed through to completion.
- Identify opportunities to improve internal processes, decision-making flows, coordination mechanisms, reporting routines, and information sharing across the organization.
- Develop concise executive information products that allow the Associate Director to maintain a clear view of institutional priorities, risks, commitments, and progress.
- Support internal communication from the Associate Director’s Office, helping structure messages related to priorities, organizational changes, strategic decisions, and institutional direction.
- Support external and institutional communication by preparing speeches, letters, talking points, briefing notes, position papers, presentations, and other strategic materials.
- Maintain a structured view of key stakeholders, including the status of relationships, open commitments, next steps, risks, opportunities, and relevant background information.
- Support governance processes by preparing materials for governing bodies, advisory boards, institutional meetings, public administrations, and internal committees.
- Lead or coordinate cross-cutting initiatives that do not naturally belong to a single unit but are critical for the institution, including strategic alliances, funding initiatives, organizational changes, and major institutional projects.
- Detect risks and early warning signals related to delays, misalignment, stakeholder expectations, reputational issues, budgetary dependencies, or organizational bottlenecks.
- Help ensure that initiatives across the institution remain aligned with BSC’s strategic vision in areas such as HPC, artificial intelligence, AI for Science, European technological sovereignty, and scientific impact.
- Support organizational and talent discussions by helping identify missing roles, overloaded teams, leadership gaps, duplicated efforts, and coordination needs.
- Prepare high-quality executive documents, including one-pagers, strategic memos, decision notes, action plans, institutional reports, and presentations for senior audiences.
- Represent the Associate Director in delegated meetings when appropriate, especially to gather information, follow up on actions, or unblock operational issues.
Requirements
- Education
- Bachelor’s or higher degree in a relevant field. Advanced degrees or equivalent senior professional experience will be valued.
- Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
- Significant experience in roles involving executive support, institutional strategy, operations, program coordination, public affairs, research management, technology organizations, or complex organizational environments.
- Demonstrated ability to work with senior leadership and to coordinate across teams without relying only on formal authority.
- Strong understanding of how complex R&D, scientific, technological, public-sector, or mission-driven organizations operate.
- Ability to interact effectively with researchers, engineers, administrative teams, public institutions, companies, policymakers, and international partners.
- High level of discretion, sound judgment, reliability, and capacity to operate with confidential and sensitive information.
- Fluency in English and Spanish is required. Catalan and/or other European languages are a plus.
- Competences
- Excellent analytical, writing, synthesis, and communication skills, with the ability to turn complex information into clear executive materials.
- Strategic thinking combined with hands-on execution capacity.
- Strong organizational awareness and ability to navigate complex institutions.
- Excellent prioritization, follow-through, and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to influence, align, and coordinate diverse stakeholders.
- Clear, structured, and concise communication style, both written and verbal.
- High trustworthiness, discretion, and sense of institutional responsibility.
- Capacity to learn complex scientific and technological topics quickly and translate them into actionable institutional work.
- Pragmatic and solution oriented.
Conditions
- The position will be located at BSC within the Directors Department
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We offer a full-time contract (35h/week), a good working environment, a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure, flexible working hours, extensive training plan, restaurant tickets, private health insurance, support to the relocation procedures
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Duration: Open-ended contract due to technical and scientific activities linked to the project and budget duration
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Holidays: 22 days of holidays + 6 personal days + 24th and 31st of December per our collective agreement
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Salary: we offer a competitive salary commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate and according to the cost of living in Barcelona
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Starting date: asap
Applications procedure and process
All applications must be submitted via the BSC website and contain:
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A full CV in English including contact details
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A cover/motivation letter with a statement of interest in English, clearly specifying for which specific area and topics the applicant wishes to be considered. Additionally, two references for further contacts must be included. Applications without this document will not be considered.
Development of the recruitment process
The selection will be carried out through a competitive examination system ("Concurso-Oposición"). The recruitment process consists of two phases:
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Curriculum Analysis: Evaluation of previous experience and/or scientific history, degree, training, and other professional information relevant to the position. - 40 points
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Interview phase: The highest-rated candidates at the curriculum level will be invited to the interview phase, conducted by the corresponding department and Human Resources. In this phase, technical competencies, knowledge, skills, and professional experience related to the position, as well as the required personal competencies, will be evaluated. - 60 points. A minimum of 30 points out of 60 must be obtained to be eligible for the position.
The recruitment panel will be composed of at least three people, ensuring at least 25% representation of women.
In accordance with OTM-R principles, a gender-balanced recruitment panel is formed for each vacancy at the beginning of the process. After reviewing the content of the applications, the panel will begin the interviews, with at least one technical and one administrative interview. At a minimum, a personality questionnaire as well as a technical exercise will be conducted during the process.
The panel will make a final decision, and all individuals who participated in the interview phase will receive feedback with details on the acceptance or rejection of their profile.
At BSC, we seek continuous improvement in our recruitment processes. For any suggestions or comments/complaints about our recruitment processes, please contact recruitment [at] bsc [dot] es [dot] For more information, please follow this link.
Deadline
The vacancy will remain open until a suitable candidate has been hired. Applications will be regularly reviewed and potential candidates will be contacted.
OTM-R principles for selection processes
BSC-CNS is committed to the principles of the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers of the European Commission and the Open, Transparent and Merit-based Recruitment principles (OTM-R). This is applied for any potential candidate in all our processes, for example by creating gender-balanced recruitment panels and recognizing career breaks etc.
BSC-CNS is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We are pleased to consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or any other basis protected by applicable state or local law.
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