Computational Linguist

University of Maryland•College Park, MD

5d•$150,000 - $180,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Computational Linguist will contribute to a portfolio of government-sponsored projects addressing emerging challenges in areas such as autonomy, decision support, cyber operations, information warfare, open-source intelligence (OSINT), and natural language processing. Positions may include a focus on research development, prototyping, experimentation, systems integration, or field deployment. Final appointment title and responsibilities will be based on qualifications and matched to programmatic needs. Must be able to obtain a US security clearance. If selected, must meet the requirements for access to classified information and will be subject to a government security clearance investigation that includes criminal and credit history checks, as well as verification of U.S. citizenship, birth, education, employment, and military history. Final offer is contingent upon the candidate’s ability to successfully obtain the necessary interim Secret security clearance, as determined by ARLIS, prior to commencing employment.

Requirements

Advanced knowledge of Python for all-purpose use/application to a variety of problems (comfort with all commonly used aspects of the language, with general scripting, data science, task automation, data collection, etc.), plus demonstrated evidence of 1+ years of regular use for professional/research purposes involving NLP.
Skill in the use of Microsoft Office products.
Skill in troubleshooting system errors.
Ability to multi-task and prioritize assignments.
Ability to analyze situations and determine the best recourse for response.
Doctoral degree in a relevant field, from an accredited college or university.
Evidence of sound scholarly production (e.g., conference presentations, published journal articles, published code, published datasets, technical reports).
5 years of research experience.
Background in and demonstrated proficiency with computational linguistics/natural language processing (NLP).
Experience utilizing AI/ML tools (including LLMs) and supporting technologies relevant to the enrichment and analysis of text data, such those used in RAG pipelines, NER, sentiment analysis, general semantic search, etc.
Must be able to obtain a US security clearance.

Nice To Haves

5+ years of regular use of Python for professional/research purposes preferred.
Experience training and/or tuning models preferred.
Experience with Python packages commonly used for AI/ML, text parsing/processing, data collection, and data science preferred (e.g., Pandas, Numpy, BeautifulSoup or other XML/HTML parsers, experience with web requests/scripted API utilization, scikit-learn, spaCy, transformers, pytorch, and/or similar).
Degree in computational linguistics or linguistics, computer science with a focus on language technologies, or related analytic discipline.
Comfort working independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced, evolving environment.
Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
Active, or eligible for a security clearance; prior clearance at SECRET or higher that is active or inactive is preferred; current TS/SCI clearance strongly preferred.
Foreign language capabilities, at the advanced level.
Experience working with multidisciplinary project teams.

Responsibilities

Contribute to a portfolio of government-sponsored projects addressing emerging challenges in areas such as autonomy, decision support, cyber operations, information warfare, open-source intelligence (OSINT), and natural language processing.
Perform R&D at a level comparable to Assistant Research Scientist.
Apply NLP to problems in candidate’s area of expertise.
Utilize AI/ML tools (including LLMs) and supporting technologies relevant to the enrichment and analysis of text data, such those used in RAG pipelines, NER, sentiment analysis, general semantic search, etc.
Train and/or tune models (preferred).
Lead applied research projects.