Postdoc Researcher in Resilient Edge Computing for Critical Infrastructure

The Project

This position is part of CIRES (Critical Infrastructure Resilience through Edge Computing Systems), a European research project funded under the Chips Joint Undertaking. CIRES addresses a fundamental and urgent challenge: how to design distributed digital infrastructures that remain operational, secure, and trustworthy under failures, cyber attacks, degraded connectivity, and large-scale disruptions.

Modern critical infrastructure increasingly relies on tightly coupled edge computing, distributed communication networks, and cloud coordination. While these architectures offer autonomy and scalability, they also introduce complex failure modes and new attack surfaces. CIRES develops next-generation resilient edge-cloud architectures with a focus on secure communication, distributed coordination, adaptive service continuity, and rapid recovery under adverse conditions.

The project brings together leading European research institutes, universities, and industrial partners, offering an opportunity to address scientifically challenging distributed systems problems while contributing to technologies that safeguard essential societal infrastructure.

About the Role

As a postdoctoral researcher in CIRES, you will develop network and system mechanisms that keep critical infrastructure services running when connectivity and power are degraded or disrupted. The work combines protocol and architecture design with implementation and experimental validation in real environments, together with the project's application partners.

Key responsibilities include:

• Designing resilient network protocols and architectures that work across connectivity conditions, from well-connected, high-capacity networks to intermittently connected, delay- and disruption-tolerant networks (DTN), and adapt to the conditions at hand

• Applying these mechanisms so that sensors, IoT and other low-power devices, user devices, and edge systems keep sufficient communication services during disruptions to communication and power infrastructure

• Developing methods for offloading computation between end devices, edge, and cloud based on available resources and current and predicted service needs, together with efficient data collection and caching

• Contributing to robust AI/ML and data analysis methods that support resilient decision making when only partial data is available

• Integrating solutions with partners' software and platforms and evaluating them in large-scale tests in real environments

• Publishing results in leading international conferences and journals

• Contributing to EU project deliverables and technical reporting

• Collaborating with industrial and academic partners across Europe

You will collaborate with a multidisciplinary team and engage with industrial partners to validate solutions in relevant environments.

What We Offer

This position provides a strong platform for building an internationally visible research career. Specifically, you will benefit from:

• The opportunity to publish in leading international venues in distributed systems and networking

• Influence over technical direction within your research area

• Access to realistic deployment environments and industrial validation scenarios

• Participation in large-scale European research collaboration across industry and academia

• Exposure to the full research-to-deployment pipeline within critical infrastructure contexts

• Career development support toward senior roles in academia, research institutes, or industrial R&D

The position is a full-time, fixed-term appointment for two years, starting as soon as possible, designed to support your career development. You will gain experience in large-scale European collaboration, applied research in critical infrastructure, and direct interaction with industrial stakeholders. Travel is included in the role, primarily within Europe, with an estimated 3-4 international trips per year for consortium meetings, workshops, and conferences.

Who Are You?

Requirements:

• PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a closely related field

• Strong background in networked and distributed systems, for example network protocols, wireless or IoT networking, or edge computing

• Experience in system design and experimental evaluation

• Demonstrated ability to publish scientific research

• Strong programming skills (e.g., Python, C/C++, or equivalent)

• Excellent written and spoken English

Meriting:

• Experience with EU-funded research projects

• Experience with robust or distributed AI/ML, for example federated learning

• Experience with delay- and disruption-tolerant, opportunistic, or mesh networking

• Familiarity with containerization, virtualization, or distributed deployment environments

• Experience with computation offloading, caching, or edge resource management

• Experience with testbeds or real-world deployments, including low-power IoT devices

• Familiarity with semiconductor or embedded hardware platforms

• Experience collaborating with industrial partners

Personal qualities:

We are looking for a researcher who combines intellectual rigour with practical systems thinking. We value:

• Strong analytical capability and independent problem-solving

• Ability to drive research forward with initiative and self-leadership

• Collaborative mindset in multidisciplinary, international environments

• Clear and structured communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Curiosity, technical depth, and motivation to work on challenging problems with real-world relevance