Post-doctoral position available at UCLouvain

Software adaptation for microservice applications in the edge-cloud continuum

Key points:
- postdoc position at UCLouvain, a top Belgian university close to Brussels;
- open to holders of a Ph.D. in computer science currently outside Belgium;
- starting date flexible, funded for 1 year initially, and extensible for up to 
  one additional year;
- topics: edge-cloud continuum, adaptation, microservices, middleware, operating 
  systems, software evolution, software visualization, etc.;
- a fundamental research project accommodating personal research objectives.

We invite applications for a funded post-doctoral position at UCLouvain, in the
teams of Pr. Etienne Rivière (Cloud and Large Scale Computing) and Pr. Ramin
Sadre (Security and Performance of Networked Systems) of the computer science
department of UCLouvain's ICTEAM institute.

The position is funded for an initial duration of 12 months, with a possibility
for extension by up to one additional year. It is accessible to holders of
Ph.D. degrees in computer science or a closely related field, with relevant
experience and publication record, who are not currently working in Belgium.

As part of the collaborative RAINDROP project (2022-2026) a team of
researchers at UCLouvain and UNamur are investigating a unique combination of
system and middleware solutions for the adaptation of application backends in
the edge-cloud continuum, as well as software evolution techniques allowing
programmers and DevOps to evolve software to be able to exploit such
distributed infrastructures. RAINDROP focuses on modern application backends
based on micro-services, operating over a service mesh and dynamically
provisioned computing resources. A typical target technology stack would
include istio, envoy, Kubernetes, and related systems.

As part of this project, the objectives of the recruited post-doctoral
researcher can be, according to personal competencies and interest, linked with
one of several of the following topics:

- Building model and runtime analytics allowing to understand requests 
  workflows and resource usage dynamics in distributed microservices  
  applications;
- Designing adaptation mechanisms allowing to decide at runtime on appropriate 
  placement and configuration of these applications;
- Proposing software visualization techniques, helping developers understand 
  how to evolve their applications to benefit from adaptation and from a 
  deployment across edge and cloud;
- Devising resource management strategies and systems for edge-cloud settings, 
  considering aspects such as performance, hardware heterogeneity (e.g., Intel 
  vs ARM), or network stability.

Expected profiles
=================

We are looking for candidates with research interests and expertise in all or 
a subset of distributed systems, software engineering, middleware, and cloud
applications.

We do not necessarily expect candidates to be experts or interested in all
topics mentioned above. Our selection will be primarily driven by the track
record of candidates, their research interests and realizations, and their
potential to make solid research contributions in line with (some of) the
interests of the project.

Applicants must have a Ph.D. in Computer Science or a closely related field at
the time they start the position. The starting date is flexible and Ph.D.
candidates with a solid scientific record who will graduate soon are also
welcome to apply. The application screening will start immediately and until
the position is filled.

Potential candidates are welcome to contact the promotors for a discussion
prior to submitting an application.

Application details
===================

Applications should be submitted by e-mail to both Prof Etienne Riviere and
Prof Ramin Sadre (etienne.riviere@uclouvain.be, ramin.sadre@uclouvain.be),
including:

(a)	Curriculum vitae;
(b)	List of up to 3 reference persons and their e-mail addresses (we ask for 
    recommendation letters ourselves: letters sent by the candidates 
    will be systematically ignored);
(c)	Transcripts of graduate studies and PhD reports;
(d)	Links to Masters and PhD thesis;
(e)	List of publications and links to PDF (not behind a paywall). 
    Please send both a comprehensive list of publications as well as the list 
    of up to three ones that you consider the most important. For each of these 
    important publications, give the details of your personal contribution and
    involvement.
(f)	Links to examples of personal software contributions.

All documents must be sent in pdf format.