I’m looking for PhD students and postdocs interested in working on an
elegant combination of functional programming and big-iron style
numeric computing. Blurb below. If you know anyone good who might be
interested, I’d be grateful if you’d pass this along.

Sounds fun!

Functional Programming and Automatic Differentiation

PhD Studentships
Postdoctoral Positions

We are adding exact first-class derivative calculation operators
(Automatic Differentiation or AD) to the lambda calculus, and
embodying the combination into a production-quality optimising
compiler. Our research prototype compiler generates object code
competitive with the fastest current systems, which are based on
FORTRAN. We are seeking PhD students and postdocs with interest and
experience in relevant areas: programming language theory, numeric
computing/numeric linear algebra, or differential geometry; and a
burning drive to help lift big iron numeric computing out of the 1960s
and into a newer higher order. Specific sub-projects include:
compiler and numeric programming environment construction; writing,
simplifying, and generalising numeric algorithms through the use of AD
operators; and associated type/lambda calculus/PLT/real computation
issues.

The project headquarters will be in the Hamilton Institute, NUI
Maynooth, Ireland, http://www.hamilton.ie/.

Applications to:
“Barak A. Pearlmutter”

I’m pleased to announce the Jane Street Summer Project for 2009.  The goal
of the JSSP is to make functional programming languages into better
practical tools for programming in the real world.  To do that, we will
fund students over the summer to work on open-source projects which aim at
improving the practical utility of their favorite functional language.

The JSSP is a follow-on to last year’s OCaml Summer Project.  A key
difference this year is that we are opening up the project to proposals in
languages other than OCaml (although we expect to maintain a focus on OCaml
projects.)  There are also some changes to the funding structure that are
particularly relevant for projects located in the US.

If you want to find out more, you can look at the JSSP blog:

http://janestreetsummer.com

And at the project FAQ:

http://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/57

We’re looking forward to a great and productive summer, and we hope some of
you come along for the ride!

Thanks,
Yaron Minsky

Research scientist position in Formal Methods

Prof. Pete Manolios
Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts

Highly motivated applicants are being sought to work on the
automation of component-based systems: from a sea of available
components, which should be selected and how should they be
connected, integrated, and assembled so that system-level
requirements are satisfied?  We are exploring all aspects of this
problem, including:

- the development of model-based languages for describing systems,

- declarative specification languages for describing assembly
constraints, and

- the use of decision procedures based on SAT, pseudo-boolean
solving, SMT, and related technologies for solving various
aspects of the system assembly problem.

Application areas include large-scale software systems,
aerospace systems, package management, and service science and
engineering.

We are working with several industrial partners and government
agencies on these projects.

The position involves conducting basic research, developing
tools, working as part of a research team, writing grant
proposals, traveling, and giving presentations.

Candidate Profile:

- PhD in Computer Science or a closely related field.
- Expertise in Formal Methods and Verification technology.
- Strong formal background in logic and discrete math.
- Experience with SAT and SMT based decision procedures.
- Very strong programming skills.
- Great communication and presentation skills.
- An established research record.

This positions will remain open until filled. It is available
immediately and has an initial duration of 2-3 years.

Salary range: $60,000-$70,000 year.

Application procedure:

Send a cover letter, CV, research statement, and copies of up to
three of your strongest publications. Also, 3 letters of
recommendation must be submitted directly by your
references. Please arrange for all of the above to be send via
email and in pdf format to both rachelb@ccs.neu.edu and
pete@ccs.neu.edu.

If you have any questions, please contact Pete Manolios

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/pete

Here is the post-doc announcement:

Postdoc position in Formal Methods

Prof. Pete Manolios
Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts

Highly motivated applicants are being sought to work on
developing decision procedures that operate directly on Register
Transfer Level designs. The decision procedures envisioned are
based on improvements to bit-level reasoning and will provide
significant advances over state-of-the-art tools by exploiting
the power of theorem proving, in a fully automatic way.

The theorem proving system under consideration is ACL2s. See
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/pete/acl2s/index.html.  We are
interested in decision procedures for languages that include
bit-vectors and arrays. A first step in this direction is the BAT
system; see http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/pete/bat/index.html.

We are working with several industrial partners and government
agencies on these projects.

The position involves conducting basic research, developing
tools, working as part of a research team, traveling, and
giving presentations.

Candidate Profile:

- PhD in Computer Science or a closely related field.
- Expertise in Formal Methods and Verification technology.
- Experience with ACL2 and SAT-based decision procedures.
- Strong formal background in logic and discrete math.
- Very strong programming skills.
- Very strong communication and presentation skills.
- An established research record.

This position will remain open until filled. It is available
immediately and has a duration of 2-3 years.

Salary range: $55,000-$65,000 year.

Application procedure:

Send a cover letter, CV, research statement, and copies of up to
three of your strongest publications. Also, 3 letters of
recommendation must be submitted directly by your
references. Please arrange for all of the above to be send via
email and in pdf format to both rachelb@ccs.neu.edu and
pete@ccs.neu.edu.

If you have any questions, please contact Pete Manolios

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/pete

cra.org has the best listing.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a listing of more teaching-oriented positions.

Other than that, you can search through the sites of individual schools for listings starting in September-October.

My advice would be:

0. Go to as many other job talks as you can.
1. Apply early (November); apply often. (Get your materials ready now.)
2. Get your letter writers primed now. (You’ll need at most 6, but no less than 3.)
3. Start contacting PL folks at other universities, and start having Harry do the same, to check for open slots.
4. Keep publishing.
5. Prepare your job talk for a general audience. (Systems, graphics, databases, etc.)
6. Make sure other fields can see the possibility of collaboration. (Most the people you meet will be non-PL.)
7. Interview at a throw-away school first to test out your job talk.
8. Have your “Over the next 5 years, I see myself…” elevator pitch rehearsed and ready to fire.
9. Be prepared for productivity to grind to a halt for two months during interview season. (Don’t be dissing or defending.)
10. Buy the book “Even a Geek Can Speak.”

Having now interviewed with 5 places and with 1 or 2 more to go, I might’ve been more careful about accepting interviews at places I didn’t think I’d go. This is a grueling process.

Good questions to ask others:

1. Why did you choose this school during your job search?
2. Where do you see this dept/school/college in 5 years?
3. What’s the teaching load like?
4. What’s the tenure process like?
5. Which courses need teaching?
6. What kind of start-up package do you think I should negotiate? (Ask this of asst. profs.)

That’s everything I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure more will drip out later.

Other resources I’ve stumbled across are:

• The ACM’s Career & Job Center.
• Stephanie Weirich’s Computer Science Faculty Job Search Resources.
• Ken Shan’s comprehensive AcademiaAdvice.