Jon Thor K
Technical Executive & HPC Pioneer
London, UK • Lead HPC/Grid Engineer at Millennium Management
Executive Summary
Founding engineer and infrastructure architect with 15+ years building HPC and cloud platforms from concept to production. Built 4 complete HPC infrastructure platforms from ground zero, each scaling to enterprise production serving Fortune 500 customers. Expert in HPC/Grid computing, hybrid cloud architectures, and bare metal automation. Track record: GreenQloud private cloud → Advania HPCFLOW → Canonical HPC portfolio → Millennium platform transformation. Currently leading HPC platform transformation at Millennium Management, one of the world's largest hedge funds.
Professional Experience
Lead HPC/Grid Engineer (Founding Engineer)
Millennium Management • Jul 2023 - Present • London, UK (Hybrid)
- • Leading enterprise-scale HPC platform transformation to support quantitative trading teams, portfolio managers, developers, and data scientists
- • Architecting hybrid cloud HPC infrastructure seamlessly integrating on-premises and public cloud resources using Slurm scheduling at scale
- • Developed comprehensive automation framework using Ansible playbooks with custom APIs for dynamic inventory management
- • Built full-stack self-service platform with Go-based APIs/CLIs and React web interface for on-demand cluster provisioning
- • Created advanced tooling ecosystem for workload scheduling optimization and performance analysis across trading operations
Interim Product Manager of MAAS / Product Manager of HPC
Canonical • Feb 2022 - Jul 2023 • London, UK
- As Product Manager of HPC (Feb 2022 - Jul 2023):
- • Reported directly to CEO Mark Shuttleworth to lead Canonical's HPC strategy
- • Leveraged Ubuntu's 14% HPC market share and dominance in AI training workloads
- • Forged strategic partnership with NVIDIA for InfiniBand optimization on Ubuntu
- • Authored industry-recognized reference architectures with leading OEMs
- • Built thought leadership through presentations at Open Infrastructure Summit, ARM Dev Summit, NASA Cybersecurity Day
- As Interim Product Manager of MAAS (Apr 2022 - Jul 2023):
- • Defined strategic roadmap for Metal as a Service focusing on HPC cluster provisioning
- • Architected critical features: diskless booting, InfiniBand support, cluster delivery
- • Established five-year product vision influencing current development cycles
CTO HPCFLOW
atNorth • Jan 2018 - Dec 2021 • England, UK (Contract)
- • Scaled HPCFLOW platform from single to multi-regional HPC-as-a-Service offering
- • Developed enterprise-grade HPCaaS with Intel Select Solutions and Open HPC
- • Led pre-sales and solution architecture for enterprise HPC requirements
- • Pioneered Omni Path vFabric multi-tenancy integrated with OpenStack Neutron
- • Engineered custom networking for HPE Flex Fabric and Cumulus OS environments
- • Presented at ISC HPC and Supercomputing conferences
Senior Solution Architect HPC
Advania • May 2016 - Jan 2018 • Reykjavík, Iceland
- • Architected and built HPCFLOW IaaS platform for HPC/AI workloads from ground up
- • Integrated OpenStack, Ironic, Packer, Slurm, and Ceph for HPC clusters as service
- • Led pre-sales technical consulting enabling cloud migration at on-premises performance
- • Pioneered early Kubernetes adoption (v1.0 in 2016) for internal services
- • Leveraged HPE Performance Cluster Manager for automated HPC deployment
Senior Deployment Engineer / Core Developer
GreenQloud • Dec 2013 - Apr 2016 • Reykjavík, Iceland
- As Senior Deployment Engineer (Aug 2014 - Apr 2016):
- • Architected cloud infrastructure using Chef automation and Apache CloudStack
- • Pioneered automated deployment for private cloud components
- • Developed bare metal provisioning for CloudStack with multi-tenant networking
- As Core Developer (Dec 2013 - Aug 2014):
- • Extended Apache CloudStack core capabilities using Java
- • Developed custom features expanding enterprise platform capabilities
Programmer
Destino • Jun 2011 - May 2013 • Stavanger, Norway
- • Developed enterprise content management system using C# and JavaScript
- • Introduced SCRUM methodology and continuous integration workflows
- • Built full-stack web applications with robust performance
- • Established CI/CD pipelines automating testing and deployment
Technical Skills
Infrastructure & Platforms
HPC & Storage
Programming Languages
Cloud & DevOps
Speaking Engagements
Juju on Metal for HPC
Charmed Operator Day • Technical Session
Introducing MAAS and how Juju charms can be used to deploy bare metal HPC workloads directly to a cluster of nodes through MAAS.
OpenStack for Computational Workloads
OpenInfra Summit • Technical Presentation
HPC, HPDA, and ML workloads demand flexibility and agility while requiring optimal performance at scale. A deep-dive into delivering computational workloads on OpenStack.
HPC on Ubuntu: Strategy and Ecosystem
ARM Dev Summit • Technical Presentation
Canonical's HPC strategy on ARM architecture — Ubuntu's role in HPC workloads on Ampere and other ARM-based systems.
Multi-Tenant HPC Infrastructure
ISC High Performance • Technical Session
How HPCFLOW built multi-tenant HPC-as-a-Service at scale — bare metal provisioning, Omni Path vFabric isolation, and enterprise-grade SLAs.
HPC in the Cloud: Lessons from the Field
Supercomputing (SC) • Technical Session
Practical lessons from building and operating HPC-as-a-Service platforms — performance, networking, and the realities of cloud HPC at enterprise scale.
Industry Recognition & Publications
Publications
A Guide to High Performance Computing
Book • Canonical/Ubuntu • 2022
Comprehensive guide to modern HPC architectures and practices
What is High Performance Computing (HPC)? - Part 1
Technical Article • Ubuntu Blog • 2022
Introduction to HPC fundamentals and applications
High Performance Computing (HPC) Anywhere - Part 2
Technical Article • Ubuntu Blog • 2022
Exploring portable and flexible HPC deployments
What is Supercomputing? - Part 3
Technical Article • Ubuntu Blog • 2023
Deep dive into supercomputing capabilities and use cases
HPC Cluster Architecture - Part 4
Technical Article • Ubuntu Blog • 2023
Understanding modern HPC cluster design and components
Open Source in HPC - Part 5
Technical Article • Ubuntu Blog • 2023
The role and impact of open source software in HPC
HPC Technologies: What Does the Future Hold? - Part 6
Technical Article • Ubuntu Blog • 2023
Future trends and emerging technologies in HPC
What is HPC? An introduction to High-Performance Computing
Video • YouTube • 2022
Educational video introducing HPC concepts and applications
Human Brain Project - UberCloud Experiment #200
Paper • HPC Wire • 2018
Technical work and cluster building for personalized clinical treatment
Living Heart Project - Stanford and UberCloud
Paper • SIMR Blog • 2017
Technical work and cluster building for cardiac simulation
Industry Recognition
Hyperion Award for Innovation Excellence
Industry Award • Hyperion Research • 2018
HPC in the Cloud at Hyperion Research
Professional Memberships
Intel Cloud Board of Advisors
Advisory Board • Member • 2018 - Present
Strategic advisor for Intel's cloud computing initiatives
HPE Centre of Excellence — HPC Team, Grenoble
Industry Collaboration • Collaborator • 2018 - 2023
Multi-year collaboration (5+ years) with HPE HPC team in Grenoble, France — contributing to product development, customer solution design, and HPC reference architecture validation.
10+
Publications
1
Industry Award
1
Advisory Board
Education
BSc Computer Science (2 of 3 years completed)
Reykjavik University • Reykjavík, Iceland • 2009–2011
Focus: Distributed Systems, Parallel Computing, Network Architecture