Postdoctoral position, Software Technology focusing on Resource Management - Befattningen är under tillsättning eller redan tillsatt, och det är inte längre möjligt att lämna in en ansökan

The Department of Computing Science at Umeå University (www.cs.umu.se) is seeking a candidate for a post-doctoral researcher position in software technology focusing on resource management systems to a collaboration project with The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm. The position is funded by The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation through The Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP), which is Sweden’s largest research program ever.

The last date for application is January 31, 2020.

The position is within the Distributed Systems group at Umeå University, which is a large, dynamic, and well-recognized research group comprised of more than 20 people from about 10 different countries. The group’s research focuses on the autonomous management of resources and applications to support the future digitized society. Target infrastructures range from single large-scale cloud datacenters to the mobile edge clouds. The research spans from basic research to applied research, and even innovation via spin-off companies. Collaborations are performed with industries like Google, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, and Ericsson, as well as universities and institutes such as Princeton University, Imperial College London, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Nanyang, Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and many more.

See www.cloudresearch.org for a presentation of the group as well as an overview of ongoing research projects and publication lists.

Project description
The project addresses the increasingly important problem of software bloat, i.e. the fact that software, throughout the whole software stack, is rapidly growing in size with consequences such as substantially increased resource consumption, reduced performance, and increased vulnerability for security threats. 

This project investigates code debloating as well as the management of specialized and debloated software. These approaches aim to establish automatic processes to detect and remove parts of an application’s compiled code that are not or seldom used.  Bloated code has many side effects including, performance degradation, wasting computing resources, and increased energy footprints. The automatic process of software debloating and execution of debloated software is tightly interrelated with semi-autonomous resource and application management, requiring both new functionality and adjusted configuration and optimization. The expected benefits of specialization and debloating are reduced security risks and attack surface, smaller programs, and faster execution. This is a highly ambitious project with very high potential to impact the software industry, while publishing very high-quality publications in top-tier venues.

The postdoc is expected to develop an individual research activity in the area of management of specialized and debloated software, publish in top conferences and journals in the fields of software engineering and systems, and tightly collaborate and cooperate with our project partners at KTH. The postdoc must also be ready to take part in supervision activities (Masters and PhD students), grant proposal preparation, and the research groups active engagement in the international scientific and industrial activities.

The appointment is for 2 years full-time employment. The employment will start as soon as possible (to be agreed).

Qualifications

Applicants must have earned a PhD or a foreign degree that is deemed equivalent to a PhD in Computer Science or a subject relevant for the position. The PhD degree should not be more than three years old by the application deadline, unless special circumstances exist.

The candidate should have a strong background in at least two of the following areas:  cloud systems software, static and dynamic program analysis, compiler techniques and optimization, operating systems, programming languages, and resource management. The candidate should be comfortable with systems level programming in general. Moreover, strong research merits and excellent publications are required. Proficiency in English, both spoken and written, is required as well as ability to work both individually and in co-operation.  The project will be adapted based on the competence of the selected candidate, and his/her interests.

Application

A complete application should include:

• Introductory letter including a 2-page statement of research interests relative to the above topics and a motivation of why your expertise is appropriate for the position.
• Curriculum Vitae (CV) including a complete list of scientific publications.
• Copies of doctoral degree certificates and other relevant degree certificates, including documentation of completed academic courses and obtained grades
• A copy of your PhD thesis and copies of (max 5) original research publications relevant to the above topics, numbered according to the publication list.
• Names and contact information for three persons willing to act as references.
• Any other information relevant for the position such as description of software development experience, or previous industry experience.

Please observe that all material needs to be in Swedish or English. If material is submitted in other languages a translation to Swedish or English must be included. As we strive for a more balanced gender distribution within the department, we encourage women as applicants.

Welcome with your application

Applications must be submitted electronically using the e-recruitment system of Umeå University, and be received no later than January 31, 2020. Reference number AN 2.2.1-2023-19.

Further information

For further information, please contact Professor Erik Elmroth, elmroth@cs.umu.se or Dr. Ahmed Ali-Eldin Hassan (ahmeda@cs.umu.se).

More information about the hosting research group and Umeå University can be found at
http:// www.cloudresearch.org/
http://www.umu.se/