Postdoc position in the ChatVerify (CVY) project for Large Language Models
(LLMs)
About the project
We invite applications for a postdoctoral research position in Prof. Joël
Ouaknine's research group at the Max Planck Institute for Software
Systems in Saarbrücken, Germany. The successful candidate will work in close collaboration
with academic and industrial partners, delving deep into the verification of
Large Language Models (LLMs) based software programs.
Focus of the Position:
- Design and implement innovative verification methods to ensure
the reliability and accuracy of LLM-based software programs, i.e.,
software programs that leverage LLMs to solve various sub-problems.
- Actively engage in the design and development of a system that
generates high-quality data utilising LLMs.
Project Insight: Software programs that utilise LLMs to tackle
complex problems often require a strategy to decompose the main
problem into smaller and simpler sub-problems. These sub-problems are
separately addressed using LLMs, and the aggregation of results from
these steps yields the final results. However, employing LLMs in these
processes can lead to uncertainties and errors in the final
outcome. Regardless of the prompt's sophistication, LLMs may generate
incorrect responses, which makes it challenging to
ensure the correctness of LLM-based software programs.
Our mission in this project is twofold:
Prompt-Level Verification: Establish methods to validate the
efficacy of the prompting processes in getting accurate responses from
LLMs.
Program-Level Verification: Develop strategies to verify the overall
reliability of the LLM-based software program, specifically its
ability to correctly synthesise intermediate sub-step results even
when faced with potentially uncertain or incorrect results from
sub-steps.
Upon establishing a successful verification methodology, the
postdoctoral researcher in this position will further refine this
approach, aiding in the development of a system optimised for
high-quality data generation using LLMs.
While the successful candidate will be hired by, and work at, the Max
Planck Institute for Software Systems in Saarbrücken,
collaboration and frequent visits to research partners are
necessary. Such partners include
TU Wien (Vienna, Austria), UCL (London), University of Calabria
(Rende, Cosenza, Italy), as well as industrial collaborators. In
addition, the successful candidate is expected to spend one or more
internships in industry. The project will build on methods and
software provided by industrial partners. We are thus looking for a
candidate who is keen and able to liaise with industry, and who
is interested in transformational research, working on practical
problems of industrial relevance.
Your qualifications and
responsibilities
Required:
- A PhD degree (or near completion) in algorithmic
verification, machine learning, databases, or a related field.
- Strong algorithm-design and coding skills, along with
proficiency in using popular Machine Learning development
frameworks, such as TensorFlow and PyTorch.
- A thorough understanding of the underlying techniques of Large
Language Models, and experience in fine-tuning or customising such
models.
- Published research articles in top-tier journals or
conferences. In exceptional cases, industry experience with a solid
background in industry-based software engineering that has led to
highly innovative products or results could partially or fully
replace the publication requirements.
- Ability and willingness to liaise with industrial partners and to
work on problems of practical relevance.
- Interest and ability to perform translational research, applying
existing theoretical results to practical problems of industrial
relevance.
- You are expected to take on the responsibility of supervising
students and research assistants.
- Proficiency in written and spoken English is
essential. (Knowledge of German is not necessary.)
Beneficial:
- Relevant experience in fields such as Information Extraction from
Unstructured Text, Automatic Web Data Extraction, Databases, or
Fuzzy Logic.
- Industrial experience, particularly experience in areas such as Big Data
Engineering and MLOps, coupled with familiarity with cloud services
such as AWS.
- Experience with software testing.
- Experience leading teams or projects, as well as supervising
junior developers or researchers.
- A product-oriented mindset.
For informal enquiries, please contact Prof. Joël Ouaknine (joel@mpi-sws.org).
To apply, please send a cover letter and CV by email to
Ms. Annika Meiser (ameiser@mpi-sws.org).
Applications will be reviewed until a suitable candidate is found. To
ensure full consideration, please submit your application on or before
22 Oct. 2023.
We would particularly welcome applications from women and minority
applicants who are currently under-represented within Computer
Science.
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