Research Software Engineer

Tilburg University | Library & IT Services

is looking for a

Research Software Engineer

Department: IT Development, Team Tilburg AI

Contract size: 0,7 – 1.0fte fte (28 - 40 hours per week)

Intended start date:
November 1st 2026

Would you like to build open-source software that helps researchers make their work more transparent, verifiable, and reusable?

Tilburg University is looking for a Research Software Engineer for Repro Hub
, a large-scale open science infrastructure project funded by OpenScienceNL/NWO. In this role, you will work with researchers, research software engineers, library experts, student developers, Tilburg University’s AI development and cloud team (tilburg.ai), and national partners such as ODISSEI.

Repro Hub develops infrastructure for researchers working with secondary and sensitive data. The project builds on existing Dutch open science infrastructure, including ODISSEI and Tilburg Science Hub, and aims to strengthen reproducibility, transparency, and public trust in science.

Your position

As a research software engineer based at Library & Information Services at Tilburg University,you will contribute to the technical development and integration of Repro Hub, a large-scale open science infrastructure project recently funded byOpenScienceNL/NWO.Specifically, you will be part of the project’s technical development team and help translate stakeholder needs into reliable, maintainable, and secure software.

Repro Hub (see project proposal for details) consists of four connected deliverables:

• Repro Buddy: an AI tool based on open-source LLMs to improve reproducibility packages using commonly used workflows in the social sciences
• Repro Run:a system tovalidateresearch results and provide certificates
• Open Science Hub .nl: scaling Tilburg Science Hub to become a national platform with accessible educational material on Dutch and European open science infrastructure

Important activities include:

• Developing frontend and backend components for Repro Hub’s tools and services;
• designing, building, and maintaining APIs and integrations between the different components;
• Contributing to API-based integration of LLM functionality, including context-retrieval approaches and open-source large language models;
• Helping build and maintain CI/CD pipelines, containerized deployment workflows, and Kubernetes-based deployment;
• Developing and improving user interfaces for researchers, research support staff, and other users;
• Reviewing code, auditing pull requests, and maintaining technical documentation;
• Collaborating with student assistants and supporting them in writing high-quality, maintainable code;
• Translating stakeholder needs into technical choices, prototypes, and production-ready solutions;
• Contributing to software quality, security, privacy, reproducibility, and responsible AI practices.

Your profile

• Ability to work and think at an academic or bachelor level
• At least 1 year of relevant experience as a full-stack developer, software engineer, research software engineer, or similar.
• Minimum CEFR level C1 English and B2 Dutch.
• Comfortable building web applications with Python and modern frontend technologies such as React, Next.js, or comparable frameworks, and has experience with Git-based workflows, code review, and writing clean, maintainable code.
• Experience with API-based integration of LLM functionality, ideally including retrieval-augmented generation or related context-retrieval approaches, working with open-source large language models, and connecting AI components to web applications or research tools.
• Experience with, or willingness to learn, technical infrastructure such as Docker, CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes, cloud deployment, monitoring, and secure software…