Lead of Methods and Engineering for Social Sciences and Humanities (RE3)

Job Reference

123_26_CSSH_RE3

Position

Lead of Methods and Engineering for SSH (RE3)

Closing Date

Tuesday, 24 March, 2026

Reference: 123_26_CSSH_RE3

Job title: Lead of Methods and Engineering for SSH (RE3)

About BSC

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is the leading supercomputing center in Spain. It houses MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, was a founding and hosting member of the former European HPC infrastructure PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and is now hosting entity for EuroHPC JU, the Joint Undertaking that leads large-scale investments and HPC provision in Europe. The mission of BSC is to research, develop and manage information technologies in order to facilitate scientific progress. BSC combines HPC service provision and R&D into both computer and computational science (life, earth and engineering sciences) under one roof, and currently has over 1000 staff from 60 countries.

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We are particularly interested for this role in the strengths and lived experiences of women and underrepresented groups to help us avoid perpetuating biases and oversights in science and IT research. In instances of equal merit, the incorporation of the under-represented sex will be favoured.

We promote Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, fostering an environment where each and every one of us is appreciated for who we are, regardless of our differences.

If you consider that you do not meet all the requirements, we encourage you to continue applying for the job offer. We value diversity of experiences and skills, and you could bring unique perspectives to our team.

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
• Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD in Computational Social Sciences, Computational Humanities or related field.
• Formal training in leadership or management is desirable
• Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
• At least 10 years of experience leading interdisciplinary teams in highly demanding environments.
• Extensive experience managing and coordinating projects in research and technology environments.
• Experience aligning projects and team activities with institutional strategy and research priorities.
• Proven ability to build and structure interdisciplinary teams in research or innovation environments.
• Experience fostering synergies across groups to enhance collaboration and optimize resources.
• Solid understanding of software engineering and data workflows to coordinate technical teams and collaborate effectively with research computing and cloud environments.

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• Demonstrated experience translating complex research objectives into structured operational and technical implementation plans.
• Experience designing scalable processes in research or innovation environments.
• Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
• Experience monitoring proposals and overseeing the development of research and technical staff at an operational level.
• Experience implementing actions that foster knowledge sharing and interaction among team members.
• Experience coordinating computational projects in Social Sciences and Humanities.
• Competences
• Proactive and able to learn autonomously.
• Strong ability to work collaboratively in a team and in multicultural environments.
• Excellent leadership skills, including communication, interpersonal skills and team management abilities.
• Ability to lead high-performing researchers and engineers as well as junior team members.
• Excellent communication skills for effective collaboration with SSH researchers, research engineers and data scientists.
• Strong problem-solving skills, with keen attention to detail.
• Hard-working and highly organized.
• 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 (37.5h/week), 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
  
  

Applications procedure and process

All applications must be submitted via the BSC website and contain:

• A full CV in English including contact details
• A cover/motivation letter with a statement of interest in English, clearly specifying for which specific area and topics the applicant wishes to be considered. Additionally, two references for further contacts must be included. Applications without this document will not be considered.
  
  

Development of the recruitment process

The selection will be carried out through a competitive examination system ("Concurso-Oposición"). The recruitment process consists of two phases:

• Curriculum Analysis: Evaluation of previous experience and/or scientific history, degree, training, and other professional information relevant to the position. - 40 points
• Interview phase: The highest-rated candidates at the curriculum level will be invited to the interview phase, conducted by the corresponding department and Human Resources. In this phase, technical competencies, knowledge, skills, and professional experience related to the position, as well as the required personal competencies, will be evaluated. - 60 points. A minimum of 30 points out of 60 must be obtained to be eligible for the position.
  
  

The recruitment panel will be composed of at least three people, ensuring at least 25% representation of women.

In accordance with OTM-R principles, a gender-balanced recruitment panel is formed for each vacancy at the beginning of the process. After reviewing the content of the applications, the panel will begin the interviews, with at least one technical and one administrative interview. At a minimum, a personality questionnaire as well as a technical exercise will be conducted during the process.

The panel will make a final decision, and all individuals who participated in the interview phase will receive feedback with details on the acceptance or rejection of their profile.

At BSC, we seek continuous improvement in our recruitment processes. For any suggestions or comments/complaints about our recruitment processes, please contact recruitment@bsc.es.

For more information, please follow this link.

Deadline

The vacancy will remain open until a suitable candidate has been hired. Applications will be regularly reviewed and potential candidates will be contacted.

OTM-R principles for selection processes

BSC-CNS is committed to the principles of the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers of the European Commission and the Open, Transparent and Merit-based Recruitment principles (OTM-R). This is applied for any potential candidate in all our processes, for example by creating gender-balanced recruitment panels and recognizing career breaks etc.

BSC-CNS is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We are pleased to consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or any other basis protected by applicable state or local law.

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