Now Hiring: Software Engineer

The Chatbot research team led by Dr. Osmar R. Zaïane at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute at the University of Alberta is seeking a full-time software developer to join an exciting project in order to build an end-to-end AI open-ended chatbot system for the elderly.

The project titled ANA (Automated Nursing Agent) will require implementing state-of-the-art natural language understanding (NLU), natural language generation (NLG), and rule-based systems to cater to specific tasks the chatbot system is targeting. The successful candidate will mainly work in collaboration with graduate students in the research team implementing and incorporating their algorithms within the chatbot.

This project is funded by the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). Our lab has a track record of publishing multiple papers at reputed NLP conferences like ACL, NAACL, and EMNLP.

Salary will be commensurate with experience and based on a standard scale ($54,027.00 to $73,378.32 per year) from the University of Alberta. This position offers a comprehensive benefits package which can be viewed at: Faculty & Staff Benefits.

Job Description

We are looking for a talented and motivated software developer, willing to learn and preferably with an understanding of AI and chatbots to help us build an end-to-end AI chatbot system that will be released in production as a web server and an android application. The successful candidate will be responsible for implementing various machine learning and AI models for NLP response generation and general classification, integrating them in a web server, and deploying them to production.

We are using a Django web framework, MySQL database, python for server-side programming, and Pytorch for NLU and NLG models. Several AI models are needed to be integrated at the back-end that caters to different tasks like natural language understanding and generation, open-ended dialogue systems, and task-oriented rule-based systems. There is a need to efficiently and concurrently run these AI models during inference to improve the response time of the chatbot.

Users will speak to the chatbot via a speech-to-text module or type questions, comments, and requests to the chatbot via the web interface. The ideal candidate will be passionate about artificial intelligence and system building and stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the field.

Duties

• Work with the research team to implement different AI models
• Integrate different AI models together in the back-end
• Improve response time of chatbot system by implementing multiprocessing techniques at the back end
• Improve upon the existing web interface by implementing user-centred design techniques
• Write high quality, production code adhering to the principles of software design and development
• Build a MySQL database on the server for storing the knowledge base and interactive sessions with users
• Write tests and documentation for different components of the chatbot system and fix bugs wherever necessary
• Improve and optimize server-side processing of the application
• Deploy an application to production via Continuous integration and continuous deployment
• Communicate about issues in the application with the research team

Qualifications

• Minimum Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering; Master’s Degree preferred
• Must have experience with Python and Javascript. C++ is a bonus.
• Must have experience with web-server frameworks like Django
• Must have experience with Linux servers, and MySQL and SparQL Databases
• Must have experience with Pytorch
• Must have knowledge of Machine learning and NLP concepts
• Must have knowledge of containarization (how to dockerize applications)
• Experience with Chatbots particularly with RASA is a plus
• Experience developing graphical user interfaces (GUI) preferred
• Must have experience with auxiliary development tools such as modern IDEs, code repositories, and Unix command line.

How to Apply

We are looking for someone to start as soon as possible. Please submit your resume and cover letter to talatiqbal+anaprog@ualberta.ca by January 9.

The University of Alberta is committed to an equitable, diverse, and inclusive workforce. We welcome applications from all qualified persons. We encourage women; First Nations, Métis and Inuit persons; members of visible minority groups; persons with disabilities; persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity and expression; and all those who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas and the University to apply.