AI-Native Software Engineering Researcher

Carnegie Mellon University•Pittsburgh, PA

3d•Onsite

About The Position

The AI-Native Software Engineering Directorate focuses on how engineering teams can quickly exploit emerging technologies and harness AI capabilities to create and evolve software rapidly without compromising fundamental software qualities. The team studies and guides industry and government teams' use of AI in software engineering, distills best practices from experiments, creates novel agents and agentic workflows, applies AI to accelerate architecture-scale modernization, and helps organizations establish AI-native software engineering practices. The overarching goal is to create new workflows and tools that enable AI-paced software delivery without loss of quality. This role involves conducting research in the application of AI to industry and government-scale software engineering problems, applying research in government and industry settings, and disseminating results to engineering teams and the broader community. The researcher will help shape the AI-Native Software Engineering strategy by exploring challenges such as assessing AI model capabilities, establishing metrics for AI use in development, identifying gaps in AI workflows, creating novel agents, adapting practices for AI-native approaches, and studying the cost implications of AI.

Requirements

A PhD with at least two (2) years of experience.
Comprehensive knowledge of software engineering fundamentals.
Ability to keep up with and adapt to rapidly changing technical advances.
A track record of conducting research and applying scientific methods to solve difficult problems.
Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to convey complex technical ideas in a layperson’s terms.
Demonstrated track record publishing in top-tier peer-reviewed venues.
Strong collaboration skills for working with colleagues and sponsors.
Proficiency in writing funding proposals or pitching ideas for new research projects.
Willingness and ability to guide and mentor junior team members.
Must be able to obtain and maintain a Department of War security clearance.
Willing to travel up to 25% of the time to locations outside of your home location. Travel sites include SEI offices in Washington, D.C., sponsor sites, and conferences.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading research projects in novel areas.
Successful application of AI to improve research or software engineering progress.
Experience working with software engineering teams on large industry or government projects.
Experience working with leadership to plan, develop, and deliver an overall technical strategy.

Responsibilities

Conduct research in the application of AI to industry and government-scale software engineering problems.
Apply research in government and industry settings.
Disseminate results to engineering teams and the broader research and software engineering community.
Help shape the AI-Native Software Engineering strategy through exploration of challenges.
Assess the rapidly changing capabilities of AI models and coding agents.
Establish metrics that help organizations understand their use of AI in development and guide them through improvements.
Identify gaps in AI workflows that result in unnecessarily poor outcomes (e.g., excessive technical debt, bad architecture decisions, or frequent rework loops).
Create novel agents or agentic workflows.
Create or adapt practices and workflows to embed software engineering discipline.
Study the cost implications of AI and develop strategies for more efficient use of AI (e.g., context management, token management, and balancing use of AI with non-AI approaches).
Work with world-class software engineers, researchers, and data scientists.
Guide and mentor junior team members.