Research Engineer (RE2)

Reference: 394_26_AII_AI_RE2 Job title: Research Engineer (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 AI Institute at BSC has consolidated experience in several NLP areas, such as massive language model building, machine translation and unsupervised learning for under-resourced languages and domains. It has been entrusted by the Spanish and the Catalan governments to develop fundamental open-source resources and technologies for Spanish and Catalan. In connection with this, the AI Institute is currently in charge of two flagship projects at the national and regional level: the ALIA Plan, funded by the Spanish Secretariat of Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, and the AINA project, aimed at developing AI resources for Catalan. In addition, the Unit participates in various EU-funded international projects. The AI Institute at BSC is looking for a Research Engineer/Developer, with experience in Language Technologies, specifically in Applied Research and Large Language Model deployment, to contribute to the Applied Intelligence projects at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. The successful candidate will work in a highly sophisticated HPC environment, have access to state-of-the-art systems and computational infrastructures, and establish collaborations with experts and companies in different areas at the local and international levels.

Key Duties

• Assist AI users with the implementation of BSC-developed resources, models and datasets.

• Support start-ups, SMEs, corporations, public institutions and academic organizations in developing early-stage AI applications for real-world use cases.

• Plan, design and conduct evaluations of natural language platforms and applications to assess their capabilities and identify development priorities for delivering impactful outcomes.

• Technical English writing of project deliverables.

• Monitor and evaluate the state of the art in Language Technologies, as well as the needs and expectations of commercial AI stakeholders.

• Advise and support external stakeholders on projects that leverage BSC-developed AI infrastructures.

• Prepare and deliver talks about AI and its applications in top tier technical forums, as well as in less technical dissemination settings.

Requirements

• Education

  • Degree in Computer Science, Telecommunications, Applied linguistics or related disciplines. A Master’s degree will also be valued.

• Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience

  • Demonstrated at least 3 years of experience in data science and the use of AI frameworks in relevant application areas.
  • Demonstrated experience in coding NLP applications in Python and other programming languages.
  • Knowledge of version control tools and best practices.

• Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience

  • Strong understanding of technology life cycles, specially early stage development and prototyping.
  • Ability to design and deliver technical presentations and training on the application of AI technologies in real-world settings.
  • Experience working with real-world datasets and building scalable models from big datasets
  • Familiarity with HPC environments

• Competences

  • Fluency in spoken and written English (required), Spanish and Catalan. Knowledge of other European languages will also be highly valued.

Conditions

• The position will be located at BSC within the Life Sciences Department

• We offer a full-time contract (35h/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: 01/10/2026

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. For more information follow this link