EN: Senior Researcher*in für Erklärbare Sprachverarbeitung und XAI

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with experience in explainable AI and human-computer interaction who will pursue an independent research agenda, acquire third-party funding, and eventually establish their own research group.

The position is initially assigned to the Efficient and Explainable NLP group in the Multilinguality and Language Technology research department at DFKI in Saarbrücken, which is headed by Dr. Simon Ostermann. The group works on national and international research and development projects in the field of explainable and efficient language processing. The environment offers a very active publication culture, high methodological expertise, a focus on basic research, and close ties to current developments in NLP and AI research.

The focus of the position is on the research and development of explainable AI systems with a special emphasis on user perspectives and interaction. Relevant topics include explainable multimodal models, user-centred explanation approaches, and the generation of rationales for complex model decisions. The specific design of the research agenda leaves room for your own ideas and new research directions.

A central goal of the position is to establish or expand an independent scientific profile. This includes, in particular, the development of your own project ideas, the acquisition of third-party funding, and the preparation and establishment of your own research group in the aforementioned field within the MLT research department.

The position is ideally to be filled on 1 April 2026; later employment is possible. The position is initially limited to three years, but may be made permanent if the candidate successfully assists in acquiring third-party funding.

Your tasks

• You will work on independent research questions in the field of explainable AI and interaction as part of a BMFTR-funded project.
• You will develop and evaluate user-centred explanatory approaches for complex AI models.
• You will publish your research at leading international conferences.
• You will design and apply for independent third-party funded projects in collaboration with other members of the group.
• You will actively participate in developing your own research agenda and take on scientific leadership tasks in the future.
• You will supervise master's theses and doctoral dissertations and participate in teaching.

Your qualifications

• Completed doctorate in computer science, AI, computational linguistics, human-computer interaction or a related field.
• Very good knowledge of explainable AI, interpretability and language processing.
• High motivation for independent research and profile building.
• Initial experience in acquiring third-party funding.
• A convincing track record of publications in the field of NLP and explainable AI, ideally at leading international conferences such as ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, EACL, COLING, CHI, FAccT, NeurIPS, ICLR or ICML.
• Very good publication and communication skills.

Your benefits

• An excellent research environment with high international visibility.
• Great scientific freedom while being part of an established research group.
• Active support in acquiring third-party funding and setting up your own working group.
• An interdisciplinary network at the interface of AI research, language processing and human-computer interaction.
• A young, motivated and collegial team.
• A working environment in which we place great value on positive, respectful and constructive collaboration.

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) has operated as a non-profit, Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) since 1988. DFKI combines scientific excellence and commercially-oriented value creation with social awareness and is recognized as a major "Center of Excellence" by the international scientific community. In the field of artificial intelligence, DFKI has focused on the goal of human-centric AI for more than 35 years. Research is committed to essential, future-oriented areas of application and socially relevant topics.

DFKI encourages applications from people with disability; DFKI intends to increase the proportion of female employees in the field of science and encourages women to apply for this position.