Job offer

GESIS - Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences is an internationally active research institute, funded by federal and state governments and member of the Leibniz Association. Starting on 1 February 2026, our Department Service Strategy & Engineering, Team Software Engineering, located in Cologne or Mannheim, is looking for a

Research Software Engineer

(Salary group 13 TV-L, working time 100 %, limited to 2 years)

The multidisciplinary Service Strategy & Engineering department is dedicated to the provision of GESIS services and infrastructures. Its range of tasks includes the strategic planning of the service portfolio, the presentation and dissemination of the services in the community as well as service-related software development.

The position is part of the DFG-funded project "ScaleRep: Providing a Multilingual Answer Scale Repository to the Cross-cultural Research Community." The project aims to develop and test a repository for frequently used multilingual answer scales (original language, tested/validated translations from existing studies, meta-information) and make it available to the community. The collaboration is interdisciplinary, involving social scientists, language experts, and language service providers.

Your tasks will be:

• Gathering of requirements for the concrete development of the repository for multilingual answer scales
• Designing user interaction in collaboration with our UX experts
• Conducting user tests along the designed user interaction
• Independently implementing the repository
• Technical data preparation for an initial filling of the repository, * An exciting opportunity to improve data quality, comparability, and replicability in intercultural research
• Flexible working hours and regulations for mobile working
• Very good conditions for reconciling work and family life, e.g. subsidies for childcare for children who have not yet attained the age of compulsory schooling
• Holistic company health management and discounted participation in the university's sports programme
• Generous support for your pension provision as a direct insurance policy
• Promotion of your skills through further training measures

• Scientific University degree (diploma, master's or equivalent) in computer science or a related discipline
• Comprehensive knowledge of software development with Angular or Java and service-oriented architectures, including operations (DevOps)
• Good knowledge of databases and modern architecture principles for microservices
• Very good written and spoken English skills; German skills are an advantage, Master Degree or equivalent