[visionlist] Research Software Engineer / Postdoctoral fellowship position in Darmstadt

[Wallis, Thomas]

Software is integral to almost all modern scientific endeavours, yet software engineering practices in science are usually ad hoc and under-valued. The Perception Lab at the Technical University of Darmstadt seeks to hire a senior scientist / research software engineer to lead the lab's scientific software development practices. The appointment is full time, with an initial period of 3 years (possible extension for a further 2 years).

Due to lack of formal training and incentives, much research code is both unreliable and error-prone. On the other hand, many practices used in product-focused industry teams are unsuitable or inefficient in an academic research setting, where the exploratory nature of the work means that the tradeoff between code quality and prototyping is different to many industry settings.

The candidate for this position will lead the development and implementation of a framework for navigating this tradeoff in academic scientific settings, while improving the reliability, reproducibility and openness of scientific code. The candidate will independently identify and develop research packages in the field of Cognitive Science (with a particular focus on Perception) in which new tools or methodologies will provide new scientific insights, and also highlight the benefit of excellent software engineering practices. The candidate will collaborate with other lab members in carrying out these identified work packages plus other activities, taking particular responsibility for the software development portions of the projects. These activities will include not only scientific conceptualization and design, but also writing and reviewing software design documents, managing shared scientific infrastructure (including via code development, tutorials, and documentation), data storage and distribution, and code review. On the basis of this experience, the candidate will create specific recommendations for navigating the tradeoff between code quality and efficiency, distributed to the scientific community in the form of articles, tutorials and workshops.

These activities require the candidate to have expertise in both software engineering and also scientific practice (ideally in the field of Perception or Cognitive Science). Consequently, we seek a candidate with a scientific background, and (1) a doctoral degree in a relevant field AND/OR (2) significant industry experience as a software engineer, data scientist, or similar role. The division of time between research- and software-focused responsibilities is negotiable depending on the interests of the candidate (but both are required). In addition, the candidate will teach courses at the undergraduate and master level in the Cognitive Science program.

Please do not hesitate to contact Prof. Thomas Wallis with questions regarding the role and employment conditions (thomas.wallis at tu-darmstadt.de).

For more details on the role, its requirements and the application procedure, please see the official advertisements here (https://www.tu-darmstadt.de/universitaet/karriere_an_der_tu/stellenangebote/aktuelle_stellenangebote/stellenausschreibungen_detailansichten_1_437120.en.jsp) and in German here (https://www.tu-darmstadt.de/universitaet/karriere_an_der_tu/stellenangebote/aktuelle_stellenangebote/stellenausschreibungen_detailansichten_1_437120.de.jsp).

Applications close 14 Jan, 2022.


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Prof. Thomas S. A. Wallis, PhD (he/him; er/ihm)
AG Perception
Institut für Psychologie & Centre for Cognitive Science
Technische Universität Darmstadt

Office:
S1|15 141
Alexanderstr. 10
64283 Darmstadt
Germany

Telefon: +49 6151 16-23980

Perception Lab Website<https://www.psychologie.tu-darmstadt.de/perception>
Google scholar<https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Xs2TXzAAAAAJ&hl=en>
Twitter<https://twitter.com/tsawallis>
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