PhD Student or Postdoc – Agentic Large Language Models for Education
Are you passionate about NLP, AI, agentic large language models and innovative, practical software solutions? You don't just want to read about research, you want to shape it yourself, in a leading NLP lab with the best development opportunities? Then become part of our team!
The UKP Lab of the Technical University of Darmstadt offers a fully funded position in an interdisciplinary project on Agentic LLMs to work on a real-life product-level user-facing platform integrated with the teaching and learning infrastructure. The project’s goal is to support Human-AI collaboration in writing and grading complex documents in education and beyond including reasoning and planning.
The project is based on a custom-built, complex software platform that is continuously being developed and used in research, teaching and data collection. The advertised position plays a key role in the research and development, management and long-term planning of this platform. It offers the opportunity to shape a research-based infrastructure that operates in a vibrant environment of teaching, software development and internationally recognized research. The candidate will work together with a dynamic, interdisciplinary team of highly motivated PhD students, student assistants and teaching staff.
The UKP Lab is one of the leading research institutions in AI and NLP. Through regular seminars, exchange formats and close supervision, we offer ideal conditions for both scientific and personal development, with excellent prospects in academia and industry.
Your Responsibilities
- Development, integration and testing of an agentic LLM framework for writing assistance and grading
- Continuous development, quality assurance and strategic planning of the platform
- Overseeing the production and annotation of research datasets in an educational context
- Writing scientific reports and publications as well as presenting results at conferences
- Designing, conducting and supporting user studies
- Supporting events, providing technical assistance and contributing to student supervision
- Technical project management with contributing developers including student assistants
- Collaborating with national and international research partners (universities, research institutes or industry)
Your Profile
- Excellent academic degree (e.g., in Computer Science, AI, NLP, Cognitive Science, HCI, or related fields)
- Strong programming skills, especially in JavaScript (experience with Vue.js and Node.js is a plus)
- Experience in (full-stack) software development and ideally in collaborative software projects
- High level of initiative, organizational skills and strong communication abilities
- Willingness to work with existing complex systems, engage in software development and actively help shape new technical solutions
We Offer
- A challenging PhD or postdoc position with strong practical relevance
- Collaboration in a committed, fast-growing team with flat hierarchies
- An excellent research environment with international visibility
- A wide range of opportunities for academic development and career advancement
- Close integration of research, development, and teaching
- Modern infrastructure and support for continuous education
How to Apply
Please submit your application via the following form: https://careers.ukp.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/ukprecruitment
Application deadline: July 11th, 2025. After that, the position will remain open until filled. We will consider applications as soon as they are submitted.