Context And Mission
The Computational Social Science and Humanities Lab envisions preparing the social sciences and humanities for the era of data, artificial intelligence (AI), and Exascale supercomputing. Our mission is to foster collaboration between social scientists and computer scientists, making high-performance computing (HPC) accessible to all researchers in the field. Through innovative approaches, we aim to apply social science and humanities research to contribute valuable insights for informed policy making. In our pursuit, we focus on a wide range of key societal research areas such as Equity and Welfare, Education, Social Services and Labor Market, Public Opinion and Political Communication in (Social) Media, Social-Ecology, Science and Technology Studies, Archived History, Archeology and Cultural Heritage. Employing a mixed of advanced AI/ML models, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Agent-Based Modeling (ABM), and Social Network Analysis (SNA), we use high-performance computational methods to a wide range of large datasets, such as official statistics, surveys, social media, web-tracking data, news, laws, bibliometric data, historical archives, current data archives, archaeology data, citizen volunteered data, and public administration and industry data.
We are seeking a highly experienced and committed leader to head the Methods and Engineering group for the Social Sciences and Humanities. The role requires demonstrated experience translating research needs into operational roadmaps and coordinating interdisciplinary technical teams in research environments. The successful candidate will ensure that research priorities are effectively operationalized into scalable, efficient, and sustainable technical support frameworks, and will work closely with other groups within the department to ensure coordination, alignment, and integration of technical efforts. The position reports directly to Dr. Mercè Crosas, Director of the CSSH Lab.
Key Duties
* Lead and manage the group Methods and Engineering for SSH.
* Support the continuous consolidation of the group, including organizational design, team development and cross-group alignment.
* Oversee and coordinate technical support for CSSH research projects, ensuring best practices in data management, AI workflows, computational methods and FAIR/reproducible research.
* Work closely with CSSH PIs to understand and support technical and methodological needs, including AI and data tools, HPC research software, and data repositories for AI-ready data and research datasets.
* Translate research priorities into structured technical roadmaps and actionable implementation plans in close collaboration with engineering teams.
* Develop and maintain scalable frameworks and service models to provide sustainable AI, data, and computational resources across the CSSH program.
* Design and implement operational processes and governance structures to enable effective coordination between researchers, research engineers and data specialists across the CSSH Lab.
* Contribute to defining research projects ensuring operational feasibility and strategic alignment.
* Coordinate with HR: support in recruitment processes, profile descriptions, and group affiliation agreements
Requirements
* Education
o Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD in Computational Social Sciences, Computational Humanities or related field.
o Formal training in leadership or management is desirable
* Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
o At least 10 years of experience leading interdisciplinary teams in highly demanding environments.
o Extensive experience managing and coordinating projects in research and technology environments.
o Experience aligning projects and team activities with institutional strategy and research priorities.
o Proven ability to build and structure interdisciplinary teams in research or innovation environments.
o Experience fostering synergies across groups to enhance collaboration and optimize resources.
o Solid understanding of software engineering and data workflows to coordinate technical teams and collaborate effectively with research computing and cloud environments.
o Demonstrated experience translating complex research objectives into structured operational and technical implementation plans.
o Experience designing scalable processes in research or innovation environments.
* Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
o Experience monitoring proposals and overseeing the development of research and technical staff at an operational level.
o Experience implementing actions that foster knowledge sharing and interaction among team members.
o Experience coordinating computational projects in Social Sciences and Humanities.
* Competences
o Proactive and able to learn autonomously.
o Strong ability to work collaboratively in a team and in multicultural environments.
o Excellent leadership skills, including communication, interpersonal skills and team management abilities.
o Ability to lead high-performing researchers and engineers as well as junior team members.
o Excellent communication skills for effective collaboration with SSH researchers, research engineers and data scientists.
o Strong problem-solving skills, with keen attention to detail.
o Hard-working and highly organized.
o Fluency in English is essential. Proficiency in Spanish and other European languages is advantageous.
Conditions
* The position will be located at BSC within the Directors Department
* We offer a full-time contract a good working environment, a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure, flexible working hours, extensive training plan, restaurant tickets, private health insurance, support to the relocation procedures
* Duration: Open-ended contract due to technical and scientific activities linked to the project and budget duration
* Holidays: 22 days of holidays + 6 personal days + 24th and 31st of December per our collective agreement
* Salary: we offer a competitive salary commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate and according to the cost of living in Barcelona
* Starting date: asap