EXCEPTIONAL, ENTREPRENEURIAL POST DOCTORAL FELLOW POSITION IN OPTIMIZATION AND MARKETS

EXCEPTIONAL, ENTREPRENEURIAL POST DOCTORAL FELLOW POSITION IN OPTIMIZATION AND MARKETS

The US administration is appropriately interested in facilitating the transfer of university-generated technologies out into the world.  As part of this effort, the National Science Foundation has a new highly-selective program for facilitating this.  Prof. Sandholm recently received a grant from that program to commercialize some of the technology and know-how being developed in his Electronic Marketplaces laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University.  The NSF grant covers a Post Doctoral Fellow, and the matching funds cover the operations of a new startup company.  The topic is in the intersection of electronic marketplaces and integer programming.  The first two products will be in advertising markets and electricity markets, respectively.

The postdoc positions in this NSF program are exceptional in that they are for cultivating next-generation entrepreneurs. The position is for 18-24 months at Carnegie Mellon University.  After that, conditional on progress, the postdoc has the opportunity to transition into a position of significance at the startup company.  This is a truly exceptional opportunity for someone who wants to change the world with technology.

The position is open immediately.

Requirements:

- Strong knowledge of integer programming (and ideally also stochastic/robust optimization).
- Strong skills and desire to build significant productized optimization software that is fast in practice.
- PhD in operations research, computer science, or equivalent field.
- Command of C++.
- Desire and ability to work hard in a fast-moving environment.
- Desire to change the world with technology.

Desired additional qualities (these are not required):

- Experience in developing commercial software.
- Experience in Software-as-a-Service/cloud.
- Command of Ruby on Rails and Java.
- Good written and oral communication skills.
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team.

The position offers the following:

- Opportunity to learn from, and work with, the world's leading experts in integer programming and market design.
- Opportunity to work on highly novel approaches to integer programming and tree search.
- Opportunity to learn from a serial entrepreneur and a mentor network how to become a successful entrepreneur.
- Opportunity to work on exciting new real-world problems.
- Opportunity to have your work fielded and change the world.
- Opportunity to publish.
- Competitive US postdoc salary.
- Opportunity to join an exciting new startup at a senior executive rank after the postdoc.

Candidates should email a letter of application, CV, and a list of references to:
Tuomas Sandholm
Professor
Computer Science Department
Carnegie Mellon University
sandholm@cs.cmu.edu
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sandholm/