Research and Development Specialist in AI-driven Cyber Range Engineering

Contract Type:

Duration:

About the SnT

The University of Luxembourg is an international research university with a distinctly multilingual and interdisciplinary character.

The Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg is a leading international research and innovation centre in secure, reliable and trustworthy ICT systems and services.
We play an instrumental role in Europe by fueling innovation through research partnerships with industry, boosting R&D investments leading to economic growth, and attracting highly qualified talent. We look for researchers from diverse academic backgrounds to contribute to our projects in areas such as: Network Security, Information Assurance, Model-driven Security, Cloud Computing, Cryptography, Satellite Systems, Vehicular Networks, and ICT Services & Applications.

The SnT is seeking a Research and Development Specialist to support the engineering work within the SEDAN group (https://www.uni.lu/snt-en/research-groups/sedan). This is a fully funded position with a duration of 2 years, within a collaborative project involving leading academic and industry partners in the field of cybersecurity and cyber-defense across Europe.

Your role

• Design, develop and maintain the software components implementing scenario generation, aggregation and gap-analysis functionalities in cyber-range environments
• Analyse existing project documentation, architecture decisions and requirements and translate them into consistent technical specifications and design choices
• Contribute to and maintain the overall system architecture, using modelling tools/notations to formalize components, interfaces and dependencies between the parts developed by SnT and those developed by partners
• Define and track the technical requirements and interface contracts expected from partners for their part of the architecture, and follow up to ensure their developments remain aligned and compatible with the overall integration
• Integrate AI models developed by the research team into functional, deployable prototypes
• Contribute to technical documentation, demonstrations and dissemination material
• Provide technical support to project coordination, reporting and deliverable preparation

The project aims to enhance the capabilities of cyber-ranges, platforms increasingly used to train students and professionals to keep pace with emerging and complex cyber threats. While robust infrastructures now exist to run cybersecurity exercises, creating and managing training scenarios remains a largely manual, time-consuming process, from scenario design and content generation to execution, monitoring and feedback.

The project addresses this by integrating automation into multiple facets of cyber-range operation: federating infrastructures to deploy complex scenarios across multiple platforms, generating and combining scenario content and integrating automated agents that assist or challenge trainees during exercises.

The Research and Development Specialist will be primarily responsible for the engineering effort of the project: turning the models and methods defined by the research team into robust, usable software, and ensuring these tools are properly integrated with partners' platforms and infrastructures.

The overall system to be built is a large, multi-partner architecture combining components developed by SnT with components developed by academic and industry partners. The position holder will own the design of a significant part of this architecture, while also having to take into account requirements, constraints and interfaces already defined earlier in the project, and to make sure the parts under the responsibility of the other partners are specified clearly enough and progress in a way that is compatible with the overall integration. The project will involve regular travelling in Europe.

Your profile

The candidate should hold a MSc degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Telecommunications, or a related field.

What we're looking for:

• A collaborative team player with a desire to make a personal impact within our interdisciplinary research group
• A motivated candidate who can work independently and efficiently, and is proactive in solving engineering problems
• Self-initiative, creativity, curiosity, flexibility and enthusiasm to work

Knowledge and Experience: The ideal candidate should have some knowledge and/or experience in one or several of the following areas:

• Strong software engineering and development skills
• Ability to read, interpret and work from long technical documents (specifications, requirements, architecture documents), including those produced by other partners or at earlier stages of a project
• Experience with architecture/requirements modelling tools and notations to formalize components, interfaces and dependencies
• Experience integrating heterogeneous systems, APIs or tools within a common platform
• Ability to track technical dependencies across multiple contributors and proactively flag integration risks
• Comfortable working on collaborative projects and respecting deadlines for deliverables

The following qualifications of the applicant are a bonus:

• Experience with cyber-range platforms or virtual training/lab infrastructures
• Experience integrating AI/ML models into production or research software
• Familiarity with description/interchange formats and ontologies (e.g. YAML/JSON schemas, MITRE ATT&CK-based modelling)
• Experience working in multi-partner, international collaborative projects

Language Skills: Excellent command of English is required. Knowledge of either French, German or Luxembourgish will be appreciated but are not a requirement to apply.

For further information, please contact us at Jerome.francois@uni.lu and lama.sleem@uni.lu

We offer

• A modern, dynamic university with a personal and inclusive atmosphere. Multilingual and international character. Staff coming from more than 90 countries. Member of The Guild of European Research Intensive Universities
• An exceptional research environment, supported by skilled staff and high-quality equipment. Strong links to professional sectors and the Luxembourg labour market. A unique urban campus with excellent infrastructure
• A partner for society and industry. Cooperation with European institutions, innovative companies, the Financial Centre and a wide range of non-academic partners including ministries, local governments, associations, and NGOs

How to apply

Applications should include:

• Curriculum Vitae
• Cover letter, including a statement on the candidate's personal motivation for applying (approx. 300 words)
• Transcript of all modules and results from university-level courses taken (Bachelor's and Master's degree or equivalent)

Early application is highly encouraged, as the applications will be processed upon reception. Please apply ONLINE formally through the HR system. Applications by Email will not be considered.

The University of Luxembourg is committed to achieving gender parity among its staff. Should candidates present equivalent profiles, preference will be given to female candidates in all departments where gender parity is not yet achieved.

The University of Luxembourg embraces inclusion and diversity as key values. We are fully committed to removing any discriminatory barrier related to gender, and not only, in recruitment and career progression of our staff.

General information:

• Contract Type: Fixed Term Contract 24 Month
• Work Hours: Full Time 40.0 Hours per Week
• Location: Kirchberg Campus
• Internal Title: Research and development specialist
• Job Reference: UOL08489