[Hidden-tech] Job opening: Software engineer, UMass CS

[Andrew McCallum]

Announcing a job opening in the UMass Computer Science department.
Questions?  Email Andrew McCallum <mccallum at cs.umass.edu> and
<jobs at ciir.cs.umass.edu>.

==========================================
Software Engineer in Information Extraction and Synthesis Laboratory
at UMass.

Work with computer science researchers and other software engineers to
revolutionize search over research literature and patents.  See our
preliminary web portal for computer science researchers at
http://rexa.info/faq, and read relevant publications at
http://www.cs.umass.edu/~mccallum/papers.

Open source tools: Linux, Java, MySQL, Apache, ...

Modern methods: Test-driven development using the Java/Spring
framework.  Feature-rich, Ajax-based web interfaces.

Intellectually stimulating: Learn about cutting edge methods in
machine learning, information extraction, web search, data mining,
social network analysis.

Serious hardware platforms: 100-CPU cluster, 10Tb disk, fast servers
and desktops.

Challenging work: Not cookie-cutter programming.  Integrate with
machine learning methods; program for high parallelism; devise
algorithms for massive scalability.  High creativity, intelligence,
experience, and independent drive required.

Experienced colleagues: Former VP R&D 170-person startup, extensive
professional software engineering experience on the team.

Tuition Benefits: Take UMass Amherst courses while working.
Opportunities to publish research papers, if desired.

True search: No internal candidate.

Excellent follow-on prospects: Several others from the lab later got
job offers from Google, Yahoo, IBM, Microsoft.  (We want someone
interested in staying multiple years, though.)

Time off:  Five weeks vacation and personal time, plus 13 holidays
each year.

Gorgeous location: Amherst, MA: bucolic surroundings plus active
culture.  Smith, Holyoke, Hampshire and Amherst Colleges all in the
neighborhood.  Office with window.


================================================
Rexa: http://rexa.info (create free login)

Rexa is a digital library covering the computer science research
literature and the people who create it.  Rexa is a sibling to Google
Scholar, CiteSeer and the ACM Portal.  It's chief enhancement is that
Rexa knows about more first-class, de-duplicated, cross-referenced
object types: not only papers and their citation links, but also
people, grants, topics---and in the near future universities,
conferences, journals, research communities, and more.

Rexa currently provides:
* Keyword search on over 7 million papers (mostly in computer science)
* Cross-linked pages for papers, authors, topics and NSF grants
* Browsing by citations, authors, co-authors, cited authors, citing  
authors;
   (find who cites you most by clicking "Citing authors" on your home  
page)
* Web-2.0-style "tagging" to bookmark papers
* Automatically-gathered contact info and photos of author's faces
* Analysis of research topics, their impact, and how they relate.

Coming soon:
* Much improved coverage of recent CS papers (it's somewhat weak now)
* Ability to make corrections to extracted data

Coming later:
* Improved ranking, extraction and co-reference accuracy
* Much more data mining
* Broader coverage of more research fields

Rather than seeing our siblings as competitors, we believe that such
services are like "newspapers for the research community", and, just
as it is tremendously important that there is not solely one national
newspaper, we think there should be many such services.  This is
especially true since increasingly they will do more than simply
supply raw information, but also provide subjective analysis, pattern
discovery, and predictions.

Rexa acts as driving application and showcase for our research in
machine learning, natural language processing, information extraction,
entity resolution, trend analysis and social network analysis. We aim
to revolutionize the progress of science by providing new tools to
help scientists do their job more effectively.


============================================
Official Job Posting:

The Information Extraction and Synthesis Laboratory within the Center
for Intelligent Information Retrieval (CIIR) at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst is seeking computer professionals to support its
expanding research.

The Software Engineers will design, implement, and maintain software
systems. Both positions require experience with programming in Java or
C++ and with building software systems, web-based systems experience
is a plus. Experience preferred in Unix, Network, shell script
programming and one or more of the following: information retrieval,
natural language processing, text and information extraction
processing, and database systems.

Software Engineer 1: B.S. in computer science or related field, or
equivalent combination of education, training and experience, plus 2-4
years experience or equivalent. M.S. preferred. Hiring Range: $39,200
- $55,400. Respond to Search #R25014.

Senior Software Engineer: M.S. in Computer Science or equivalent and
2-4 years of related work experience. Demonstrated leadership ability
required; project management experience preferred. Hiring Range:
$47,600 - $65,000. Respond to Search #R26907.

To apply, send a letter with your resume and three letters of
recommendation to: Search {# from above}, Computer Science Department,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003-9264. These positions
are grant-funded; renewal beyond one year contingent upon continued
funding. Review of applications will continue until the available
positions are filled.

The University of Massachusetts is an Affirmative Action/Equal
Opportunity Employer. Women and members of minority groups are
encouraged to apply.