Junior Research Engineer in Natural Language Processing

100%, Zurich, fixed-term

The ETH Media Technology Center is a place where you will work connecting research and innovative industry applications to build the media technologies of tomorrow. To achieve this, the center provides a unique arrangement that allows a lively knowledge exchange between industry partners, experts, and students to work on the digital transformation of media, covering salient disciplines such as media technology, digital journalism, and design. To join our interdisciplinary team, we offer a position as Junior Research Engineer in Natural Language Processing.

Project background

We are currently exploring how we can make recent advances in NLP accessible to the Swiss media industry. Most models in natural language processing (NLP) show the best performance for English since, traditionally, research questions are addressed first for English texts. Besides, most available data sets are in English. This has led to a considerable performance gap between NLP methods for English and other languages. The media landscape of Switzerland offers a unique opportunity to advance the state-of-the-art in multilingual NLP research: Despite its small size, Switzerland has four official national languages and a variety of strong dialects that are used in written and oral communication.

Job description

Together with experienced researchers (Postdocs), you will research and develop software prototypes for new media technologies, specifically focusing on natural language processing projects. In your first project you will work on emotion and stance detection for German text. This technology has many important applications from moderating online conversations towards a pluralistic discourse to automatically building article portfolios about important topics. Some of the exciting challenges not only include how to adapt classification models for German, but also how to deal with data sparsity. This is why you will explore semi-supervised and unsupervised methods as well as active learning strategies. You will have the opportunity to participate in the decision-making of key aspects of the project while being responsible for implementing and testing state-of-the-art research into software prototypes.

The initial employment contract will be for 6 months. Further contract extensions on an annual basis will be decided in the course of the first months of employment.

Your profile

• Hold a master's degree or a diploma from a university of applied sciences. Relevant fields: computer science, data science, electrical engineering, etc.
• Background in natural language processing / computer linguistics and machine learning. Publications (e.g. from your Master thesis) in venues such as ACL, EMNLP, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR are a plus
• Good programming skills, preferably in Python
• Familiarity with Tensorflow/Pytorch, Keras
• Proficiency in written and verbal communication in English
• Speaking one of the national languages of Switzerland is a plus: German, French, Italian, Romansh

We offer

ETH Zurich is a family-friendly employer with excellent working conditions. You can look forward to an exciting working environment, cultural diversity and attractive offers and benefits.

Working, teaching and research at ETH Zurich

We value diversity

In line with our values, ETH Zurich encourages an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity and nurture a working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our Equal Opportunities and Diversity website to find out how we ensure a fair and open environment that allows everyone to grow and flourish.

Curious? So are we.

We look forward to receiving your application with the following documents:

• Cover letter: a short (one page or less) statement of your motivation for joining MTC
• CV
• University degree(s) & transcripts (grades)

Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via e-mail or postal services will not be considered.

You can find more information about the Media Technology Center on our website, ?url=www.mtc.ethz.ch&module=jobs&id=2294351" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.mtc.ethz.ch . For more information about the position, contact Dr. Fabio Zünd by email at fabio.zundinf.ethz.ch (no applications).

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About ETH Zürich

ETH Zurich is one of the world’s leading universities specialising in science and technology. We are renowned for our excellent education, cutting-edge fundamental research and direct transfer of new knowledge into society. Over 30,000 people from more than 120 countries find our university to be a place that promotes independent thinking and an environment that inspires excellence. Located in the heart of Europe, yet forging connections all over the world, we work together to develop solutions for the global challenges of today and tomorrow.