About the research centre or Inria department

Contract type: Fixed-term contract (5 months)
Location: Rennes, France
Starting date: 2026-09-01

About the role

The Inria center at the University of Rennes is one of eight Inria centers, home to over thirty research teams. It is a major player in digital sciences, embedded in a vibrant R&D and innovation ecosystem that includes innovative SMEs, large industrial groups, competitiveness clusters, academic partners, and leading research laboratories.

The PACAP project team focuses on computer system performance and its measurement. In collaboration with the Inria SPLiTS team and the University of Montréal, the project aims to first quantify performance variability across a wide range of hardware—from microcontrollers to modern processors and older architectures. The second goal is to identify the sources of this variability, which depend on the microprocessor, its microarchitecture, the compiler, the operating system, and external conditions. The role may include travel to Sophia Antipolis.

Responsibilities

• Propose a user interface in collaboration with project team members
• Develop a testing platform for executing benchmarks on diverse machines (local, remote, bare-metal, etc.)
• Design a method for storing benchmark results
• Propose reporting methods (graphical and textual)
• Validate the platform on a heterogeneous set of machines

For further insight into the research topic, candidates may consult the following publications:

• Touati SA, Worms J, Briais S. The Speedup-Test: a statistical methodology for programme speedup analysis and computation. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience. 2013 Jul;25(10):1410-26.
• Curtsinger C, Berger ED. STABILIZER: statistically sound performance evaluation. In Proceedings of the eighteenth international conference on Architectural support for programming languages and operating systems (ASPLOS '13). 2013. https://doi.org/10.1145/2451116.2451141
• Mytkowicz T, Diwan A, Hauswirth M, Sweeney PF. Producing wrong data without doing anything obviously wrong! SIGPLAN Not. 2009 Mar;44(3):265–276. https://doi.org/10.1145/1508284.1508275

Requirements

• Strong knowledge of the C programming language
• Excellent proficiency in scripting languages: sh (bash), Python
• Experience with graphing tools (e.g., gnuplot, matplotlib)
• Fluency in French and English (reading, writing, speaking)

The ideal candidate will demonstrate scientific rigor, intellectual curiosity, and a commitment to teamwork.

Benefits

• Subsidized meals
• Partial reimbursement of public transportation costs
• Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 days of RTT (full-time basis) + exceptional leave options (e.g., for sick children, moving)
• Remote work options (after 6 months of employment) and flexible working hours
• Professional equipment provided (videoconferencing, computer hardware loans, etc.)
• Access to social, cultural, and sports activities (via Inria’s social works association)
• Access to professional training
• Social security coverage

Pay

Starting from €2,695 gross per month, based on experience.