AI-Native Software Engineering Researcher - 2024928

About the role

We focus on how today's engineering teams can quickly exploit emerging technologies and harness AI capabilities to create and evolve software quickly without losing fundamental software qualities. As an AI-Native Software Engineering Researcher, you will conduct research in the application of AI to industry and government-scale software engineering problems, apply your research in real-world settings, and disseminate results to engineering teams and the broader research and software engineering community.

You will help shape our AI-Native Software Engineering strategy by exploring challenges such as:

• Assessing the rapidly changing capabilities of AI models and coding agents
• Establishing metrics that help organizations understand their use of AI in development and guiding them through improvements
• Identifying gaps in AI workflows that result in poor outcomes (e.g., excessive technical debt, bad architecture decisions, or frequent rework loops)
• Creating novel agents or agentic workflows
• Creating or adapting practices and workflows to embed software engineering disciplines
• Studying the cost implications of AI and developing strategies for more efficient use of AI (e.g., context management, token management, and balancing use of AI with non-AI approaches)

You will have the opportunity to work with world-class software engineers, researchers, and data scientists on national and global-scale problems.

Responsibilities

• Study and guide industry and government teams’ use of AI in software engineering
• Distill best practices and lessons from experiments and experience to shape AI-native software engineering
• Pilot and transition improvements with organizations and measure their success
• Create novel agents and agentic workflows to support software engineering
• Apply AI to accelerate architecture-scale modernization
• Help organizations establish AI-native software engineering practices
• Guide organizations in evolving their software with architecture and AI-native approaches
• Disseminate research results to engineering teams and the broader research community

Requirements

• A PhD with at least two (2) years of experience
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Department of War security clearance (subject to a background investigation)
• Willingness to travel up to 25% of the time to locations outside your home location, including SEI offices in Washington, D.C., sponsor sites, and conferences

Skills & Qualifications

• Comprehensive knowledge of software engineering fundamentals
• Ability to keep up with and adapt to rapidly changing technical advances
• Track record of conducting research and applying scientific methods to solve difficult problems
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to convey complex technical ideas in layperson’s terms
• Demonstrated track record publishing in top-tier peer-reviewed venues
• Strong collaboration skills for working with colleagues and sponsors
• Proficiency in writing funding proposals or pitching ideas for new research projects
• Willingness and ability to guide and mentor junior team members

Desired Experience

• Experience leading research projects in novel areas
• Successful application of AI to improve research or software engineering progress
• Experience working with software engineering teams on large industry or government projects
• Experience working with leadership to plan, develop, and deliver an overall technical strategy