Postdoc In Software Engineering

As one of the largest and most dynamic academic communities in the Netherlands, the department Mathematics and Computer Science (M&CS) brings together more than 140 scientific staff, over 250 PhD and EngD candidates, and more than 3000 students. We collaborate closely with leading industrial partners in the Brainport Eindhoven region and with universities across the globe—creating a uniquely fertile environment for both fundamental breakthroughs and applied innovation.

Introduction

Research software is essential for modern science, yet there is a lack of suitable metrics to assess its impact, fragmented practices across disciplines, and insufficient guidance for researchers on good open software practices. As part of the Open Science NL-funded GUIDE-ME project, the Software Engineering and Technology Cluster at TU/e is hiring a two-year postdoc to lead research on guidelines and metrics for impactful open research software practices.

Job Description

The GUIDE-ME project pursues the following three interconnected objectives:

• Building on existing approaches, develop and evaluate a set of metrics for assessing the impact of open research software.
• Develop actionable guidelines for sharing open research software. This includes analyzing existing open software sharing practices, distilling them into cross-domain best practices, and aligning them with the aforementioned metrics.
• Design and evaluate a training program to disseminate the guidelines and metrics to researchers across disciplines.

Throughout the project, the postdoc will work in close collaboration with the project team and external partners, including the Netherlands eScience Center. The project will be supervised by Dr. Alexander Nolte (TU/e, project lead) and Dr. Jacob Krüger (TU/e), with additional support from Dr. Slinger Jansen (Utrecht University), Dr. Louise Bezuidenhout (Leiden University), and Dr. Carlos Martinez-Ortiz (Netherlands eScience Center).

The position offers an excellent opportunity to develop your own research profile around the project’s themes, publish and present your work at international conferences, develop a professional network within the Dutch and international open science community, and gain experience in organizing workshops and collaborative research events.

Desired starting date: September 1, 2026.

Job Requirements

• A PhD in a relevant field, such as meta-science, research evaluation, science and technology studies, information science, computer science, or a related discipline.
• Experience with or understanding of (open-source) software ecosystems and software engineering practices.
• Skills in qualitative research methodologies, such as interviews, surveys, or co-creation workshops.
• Familiarity with quantitative research methodologies (e.g., mining software repositories) is an advantage but not mandatory.
• A team player who enjoys coaching PhD and Master's students and working in a dynamic, interdisciplinary team.
• Excellent (written and verbal) proficiency in English, good communication skills.

Conditions of Employment

A meaningful job in a dynamic and ambitious university, in an interdisciplinary setting and within an international network. You will work on a beautiful, green campus within walking distance of the central train station. In addition, we offer you:

• Full-time employment for 2 years. Please note that for a postdoc position, our departmental policy is that we offer a one-year contract first, which is extended based on good performance.
• Salary in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, scale 10 (min. € 4,241 max. € 5,538).
• A year-end bonus of 8.3% and annual vacation pay of 8%.
• High-quality training programs on general skills, didactics and topics related to research and valorization.
• An excellent technical infrastructure, on-campus children's day care and sports facilities.
• Unlimited access to the