Coolest jobs in tech (literally): running a South Pole data center

I wonder if there is any need for software engineers down there to support the scientific teams?

I'm not a sys admin but I wouldn't mind doing a tour just for the experience.

With the contract switching from Raytheon to Lockheed, the general NSF support contract should have a bunch of IT positions opening up next research season, I'd think.

I think we'll see a lot of remote supercomputers in the future. For applications where bandwidth or latency aren't critical this makes a lot of sense.

Iceland is another great example of this. I recently visited there and they have a huge surplus of energy. They have heated sidewalks, everyone heats their houses 24/7 and they're still only using some tiny fraction of their natural geothermal energy (I think around 2%).

If I had to build a supercomputer for long-running computations, I'd build it there.

I worked down there with IceCube. We had a few programmers in the project, but it was very competitive to get a slot at the Pole. Most of the people sent down were for physical drilling operations. I went down to do data acquisition software. IceCube is done with construction, so they don't need to send people any more. If you don't go with a science project, the other option is Raytheon Polar Services. Raytheon, however, pays their workers almost nothing because they know that people want to travel there. There were bus drivers with Ph.D.'s. The cook was a gourmet chef.