Regardless of your experience level with HPC, in order to fully utilize it, you need access to three main components:  hardware, software, and expertise.

HPC Hardware can consist of cloud based resources, small departmental level clusters, or even powerful workstations, etc..  These are available from a variety of vendors, ranging from online ‘pay-as-you-go’ access, to large systems custom designed and installed in dedicated data centers.

CAE software can comprise of things such as solvers, meshers, visualization, and workflow managers, etc..  This software can range from very specialized, open-source packages available at no cost, to more generic commercial packages that can run across a wide scale of domains and resources.

Expertise that is available includes domains such as Computational Fluid Dynamics, Finite Structural Analysis, Bioinformatics, etc.  Companies needing expertise often start with external consulting “engineering service providers” who can assist with a specific project, before eventually directly hiring domain experts versed in a variety of technical skills.