Postdoc in NLP-driven Meta-Synthesis of Evidence in Software Effort Estimation, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University

The Section for Software Engineering and Computing Systems, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), invites applicants for a three-year postdoctoral position within the area of Software Effort Estimation (SEE).

This position is funded by a Danish National Research Foundation Chair grant that aims to significantly expand our understanding of the SEE area by means of a solution coined as probabilistic meta-synthesis of evidence.

Join us as a Post Doctoral Researcher in Meta-Synthesis of Evidence in Software Effort Estimation and dive into cutting-edge research, harnessing Natural Language Processing and AI for Effort Estimation. Shape the future of Software Engineering with us!

Expected start date and duration of employment

This is a three-year fixed-term position with employment start date is 1st of June, or shortly afterwards.

The research to be addressed

Sound Software Effort Estimation (SEE) is core to reliable Software project management; however, despite being an area investigated for 50+ years, research in SEE still lacks a valid & detailed understanding that can concretely provide practitioners with evidence-based and tailored recommendations within the context of SEE.

The DNRF Chair grant aims to address such significant problem via the use of NLP and explainable AI to mine the SEE research literature and use such resulting evidence as input to develop tailored, and probabilistic, recommendations to improve SEE decision-making. The research solutions developed here can also be implemented in other equally important areas within Software Engineering, which increases the extent of this project’s contribution to both research and practice.

Job description

The applicant will work in the Software Engineering Theme, which is one of several Themes part of the Software Engineering and Computing Systems Section at AU-ECE. This research is one of the aspects to be investigated within the context of the DNRF Chair grant, and an additional funding from Aarhus University. This means that the applicant with immediately engage in a wider collaboration within the Software Engineering Theme, and also potentially across other Themes.

Your profile

Applicants should hold a PhD degree in Computer Science or related field.

Required qualifications:

• Solid research experience in NLP, and ML, with proven experience with at least three of the following:
  • Corpus construction and annotation
  • Information Extraction tasks (for example Named Entity Recognition, span detection etc.)
  • Large Language Models
  • Transformers and Foundation models
  • Domain adaptation and transfer learning
• Solid programming expertise in Python, and relevant frameworks such as Pytorch, TensorFlow, and SpaCy.
• Exposure to linguistics concepts is desirable
• Experience with publishing in relevant journals and conferences, A first author publication in a top NLP venue (such as: ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, etc.) is highly advantageous
• Be the main author in at least one journal publication published at a high impact journal. This journal does not need to be in the field of Software Engineering but needs to be of high impact.
• Experience with publishing in journals and conferences.
• Fast learner with interests in multidisciplinary research.
• Excellent English skills, both orally and written.
• Ability to collaborate effectively within a multidisciplinary and multicultural team.
• Inclusive and open minded.

(Optional) Prior research experience in software effort estimation is a plus.

Who we are

Further details about the Software Engineering and Computing Systems Section can be found here:

https://ece.au.dk/en/research/key-areas-in-research-and-development/software-engineering-computing-systems

Further details about the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering can be found here: https://ece.au.dk/en/about-the-department

Follow us on our LinkedIn .

What we offer

The department offers:

• a well-developed research infrastructure, laboratories and access to shared equipment.
• an exciting interdisciplinary environment with many national, international and industrial collaborators.
• a research climate encouraging lively, open and critical discussion within and across different fields of research.
• a work environment with close working relationships, networking and social activities.
• a workplace characterised by professionalism, equality and a healthy work-life balance.

Place of work and area of employment

The place of work is Finlandsgade 22, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark, and the area of employment is Aarhus University with related departments.

Contact information

Additional information relating to this job opening position can be obtained by contacting the project leader, Professor Emilia Mendes (

[email protected]

).

Deadline

Applications must be received no later than 29 March 2024.

Application procedure

Shortlisting is used. This means that after the deadline for applications – and with the assistance from the assessment committee chairman, and the appointment committee if necessary, – the head of department selects the candidates to be evaluated. All applicants will be notified whether or not their applications have been sent to an expert assessment committee for evaluation. The selected applicants will be informed about the composition of the committee, and each applicant is given the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that concerns him/her self. Once the recruitment process is completed a final letter of rejection is sent to the deselected applicants.

Letter of reference

If you want a referee to upload a letter of reference on your behalf, please state the referee’s contact information when you submit your application. We strongly recommend that you make an agreement with the person in question before you enter the referee’s contact information, and that you ensure that the referee has enough time to write the letter of reference before the application deadline.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to ensure that letters of reference received after the application deadline will be taken into consideration.

Formalities and salary range

Technical Sciences refers to the

Ministerial Order on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Danish Universities under the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation

.

The application must be in English and include a curriculum vitae, degree certificate, a complete list of publications, a statement of future research plans and information about research activities, teaching portfolio and verified information on previous teaching experience (if any). Guidelines for applicants can be found here.

Appointment shall be in accordance with the collective labour agreement between the Danish Ministry of Taxation and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations. Further information on qualification requirements and job content may be found in the Memorandum on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Danish Universities .

Salary depends on seniority as agreed between the Danish Ministry of Taxation and the Confederation of Professional Associations.

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which each individual has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants.

Research activities will be evaluated in relation to actual research time. Thus, we encourage applicants to specify periods of leave without research activities, in order to be able to subtract these periods from the span of the scientific career during the evaluation of scientific productivity.

Aarhus University offers a broad variety of services for international researchers and accompanying families, including relocation service and career counselling to expat partners. Read more here . Please find more information about entering and working in Denmark here .

Aarhus University also offers a Junior Researcher Development Programme targeted at career development for postdocs at AU. You can read more about it here .

The application must be submitted via Aarhus University’s recruitment system, which can be accessed under the job advertisement on Aarhus University’s website.