Research Engineer for Language Technologies

720_25_LS_LT_RE2

Research Engineer for Language Technologies (RE2)

Monday, 08 December, 2025

Reference: 720_25_LS_LT_RE2

Job title: Research Engineer for Language Technologies (RE2)

About BSC

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is the leading supercomputing center in Spain. It houses MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, was a founding and hosting member of the former European HPC infrastructure PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and is now hosting entity for EuroHPC JU, the Joint Undertaking that leads large-scale investments and HPC provision in Europe. The mission of BSC is to research, develop and manage information technologies in order to facilitate scientific progress. BSC combines HPC service provision and R&D into both computer and computational science (life, earth and engineering sciences) under one roof, and currently has over 1000 staff from 60 countries.

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We are particularly interested for this role in the strengths and lived experiences of women and underrepresented groups to help us avoid perpetuating biases and oversights in science and IT research. In instances of equal merit, the incorporation of the under-represented sex will be favoured.

We promote Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, fostering an environment where each and every one of us is appreciated for who we are, regardless of our differences.

If you consider that you do not meet all the requirements, we encourage you to continue applying for the job offer. We value diversity of experiences and skills, and you could bring unique perspectives to our team.

Context And Mission

The Language Technologies Laboratory at BSC has consolidated experience in several NLP areas, such as massive language model building, biomedical text mining, machine translation and unsupervised learning for under-resourced languages and domains. It has been entrusted by the Spanish and the Catalan governments with the mission to develop fundamental open-source resources and technologies for Spanish and Catalan. In connection with this, the LT Lab is currently in charge of two flagship projects at the national and regional level: the ALIA project, funded by the Spanish Secretariat of Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, and the AINA project, aimed at developing AI resources for Catalan, funded by the Catalan Digitalisation Department. In addition, the Lab participates in various EU funded international projects.

The LT Lab at BSC is looking for a research engineer with experience in Language Technologies, specifically in Deep Learning and large language model building, and possibly in other areas of Natural Language and Speech Processing.

The successful candidate will implement innovative techniques for language modelling and evaluation in a highly sophisticated HPC environment, have access to state-of-the-art systems and computational infrastructures, and establish collaborations with experts in different areas at the local and international levels.

Este contrato se encuentra financiado por el proyecto "DESARROLLO DE MODELOS DEL LENGUAJE EN EL MARCO DEL PLAN NACIONAL DE TECNOLOGÍAS DEL LENGUAJE, EL PERTE DE NUEVA ECONOMÍA DE LA LENGUA Y EL PLAN DE RECUPERACIÓN, TRANSFORMACIÓN Y RESILIENCIA- FINANCIADO POR LA UNIÓN EUROPEA – NEXTGENERATION EU", con referencia externa 2023EtL00054, promovido por la Secretaría de Estado de Digitalización e Inteligencia Artificial (SEDIA), cuyos fondos provienen del Ministerio para la Transformación Digital y de la Función Pública, financiado por la Unión Europea-NextGenerationEU».

Key Duties

• Work, in collaboration with the group members, on the design and development of the solutions needed to achieve the goals of the group's research projects.
• Interact with relevant stakeholders of the group's research projects to understand their problems and the available data to formulate valuable solutions.
• Collaborate with the members of the group in the generation and evaluation of language models using Deep Learning techniques (Transformers, Recurrent Neural Networks, and other neural network architectures).

Requirements

• Education
• Degree in Computer Science or Mathematics or related disciplines.
• Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
• Good knowledge of Python.
• Experience in machine learning techniques applied to NLP.
• Research experience.
• Knowledge of Test-Driven Design and/or Development.
• Knowledge of Deep Learning.
• Knowledge of mathematics and statistics applied to Machine Learning.
• Experience in machine learning and data mining, including knowledge of PyTorch, Tensorflow, Pandas, Scikit-learn and/or Numpy.
• Good knowledge of Linux.
• Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
• Theoretical broad knowledge of AI techniques.
• Knowledge of HPC workload managers such as Slurm.
• Knowledge of Continuous Integration/Delivery/Deployment, including tools such as (or similar to) GitLab CI, Github, Docker and/or Ansible.
• Basic knowledge of C++, , C#, Matlab and/or Java.
• Experience in optimisation and parallelisation, ideally in HPC clusters.
• Experience in research and dissemination activities, including paper writing.
• Basic Knowledge of GPU-based computing.
• Fluency in spoken and written English.
• Competences
• Capacity to explore new research lines.
• Good communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to work within a team and within a pair (pair programming).

Conditions

• The position will be located at BSC within the Life Sciences Department
• We offer a full-time contract (37.5h/week), a good working environment, a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure, flexible working hours, extensive training plan, restaurant tickets, private health insurance, support to the relocation procedures
• Duration: Open-ended contract due to technical and scientific activities linked to the project and budget duration
• Holidays: 22 days of holidays + 6 personal days + 24th and 31st of December per our collective agreement
• Salary: we offer a competitive salary commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate and according to the cost of living in Barcelona
• Starting date: 01/01/2026

Applications procedure and process

All applications must be submitted via the BSC website and contain:

• A full CV in English including contact details
• A cover/motivation letter with a statement of interest in English, clearly specifying for which specific area and topics the applicant wishes to be considered. Additionally, two references for further contacts must be included. Applications without this document will not be considered.

Development of the recruitment process

The selection will be carried out through a competitive examination system ("Concurso-Oposición"). The recruitment process consists of two phases:

• Curriculum Analysis: Evaluation of previous experience and/or scientific history, degree, training, and other professional information relevant to the position. - 40 points
• Interview phase: The highest-rated candidates at the curriculum level will be invited to the interview phase, conducted by the corresponding department and Human Resources. In this phase, technical competencies, knowledge, skills, and professional experience related to the position, as well as the required personal competencies, will be evaluated. - 60 points. A minimum of 30 points out of 60 must be obtained to be eligible for the position.

The recruitment panel will be composed of at least three people, ensuring at least 25% representation of women.

In accordance with OTM-R principles, a gender-balanced recruitment panel is formed for each vacancy at the beginning of the process. After reviewing the content of the applications, the panel will begin the interviews, with at least one technical and one administrative interview. At a minimum, a personality questionnaire as well as a technical exercise will be conducted during the process.

The panel will make a final decision, and all individuals who participated in the interview phase will receive feedback with details on the acceptance or rejection of their profile.

At BSC, we seek continuous improvement in our recruitment processes. For any suggestions or comments/complaints about our recruitment processes, please contact recruitment [at] bsc [dot] es.

For more information, please follow this link.

Deadline

The vacancy will remain open until a suitable candidate has been hired. Applications will be regularly reviewed and potential candidates will be contacted.

OTM-R principles for selection processes

BSC-CNS is committed to the principles of the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers of the European Commission and the Open, Transparent and Merit-based Recruitment principles (OTM-R). This is applied for any potential candidate in all our processes, for example by creating gender-balanced recruitment panels and recognizing career breaks etc.

BSC-CNS is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We are pleased to consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or any other basis protected by applicable state or local law.

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