Job offer

The ChordIA-CM project ("Unveiling Musical Grammar"), funded by the Comunidad de Madrid, is a groundbreaking synergistic research initiative focused on studying the emergence and consolidation of the tonal system in Western music (1580-1750). This collaborative project brings together researchers from the Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales (ICCMU), the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED-LENAR) and professionals from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Álvaro Torrente Sánchez-Guisande (ICCMU/UCM) and the Associate Professor Dr. Salvador Ros Muñoz (UNED).

Project Aims

ChordIA's core objectives are:

1. To create a large-scale, multimodal dataset of thousands of musical works (1580-1750), including digital scores (MusicXML, MIDI, MuseScore), harmonic annotations, text, and audio.
2. To develop an optimized sequencing format for training Large Language Models (LLMs) on symbolic music data.
3. To conduct a diachronic study of the relationship between poetic structure and harmonic planning using NLP techniques .
4. To design an agent-based architecture and multimodal models for the advanced analysis of harmony .
5. To establish a comprehensive evaluation framework and leaderboard for musical language models., We are seeking a highly motivated and talented Data Scientist to join the UNED team. As a key technical member of the project, your responsibilities will be:

• Conducting research at the intersection of AI, music informatics, and musicology, with a technical focus on Deep Learning architectures and LLMs.
• Collaborating closely with the consortium's musicologists and leading the technical implementation under the supervision of Prof. Salvador Ros.
• Working with diverse musical formats (MusicXML, MIDI, MEI) to ensure corpus interoperability and quality.
• Contributing to the development, training, and evaluation of AI models, including multimodal models and agent architectures.
• Producing high-impact scientific publications in top-tier conferences and journals (ISMIR, etc.)., * Technical Research Environment: You will work within the School of Computer Engineering (ETSI Informática) at UNED, a leading environment in Digital Humanities and Applied AI.
• PhD Opportunity: For candidates with a Master's degree, we offer the possibility of developing a doctoral thesis based on the project's research.
• Pioneering Project: A key role in a groundbreaking research project at the intersection of AI and digital musicology.

The selected candidate will join the research group through an employment contract with UNED, in accordance with Article 23 bis of Law 14/2011 of June 1 on Science, Technology and Innovation, as amended by Law 17/2022 of September 5, and other applicable legal provisions.

The contract will be of an indefinite nature and full-time (37,5 hours per week), although its duration will be subject to the duration of the research project supporting it, which is scheduled to end on 31/12/28, and to the availability of sufficient funding.

In any case, the causes for termination of the contract are those established in Article 49 of the revised text of the Workers' Statute and related regulations. Objective grounds for termination include those set out in Article 52 of the same law, with particular reference to section (e), which specifies insufficient funding allocation as an objective cause.

The selected candidate must take up the position within ten days following the signing of the contract. Failure to do so will be considered a withdrawal and will entail the loss of any rights derived from this call.

The contract will provide a gross monthly salary of € 3.083,33 throughout its duration, paid in twelve installments (extra payments prorated).

Under no circumstances shall the services provided under this contract imply any commitment regarding future incorporation into the UNED staff. Eligibility criteria

Hold Spanish nationality, or have a residence and work permit in Spain. If not available at the time of application, the applicant commits to undertaking the necessary legal procedures to obtain it.

In the case of degrees obtained from foreign universities, applicants must provide the official recognition (homologation) credential or the corresponding certificate of equivalence, in accordance with Royal Decree 889/2022 of October 18, which establishes the conditions and procedures for the recognition, equivalence, and validation of foreign higher education qualifications and regulates their correspondence to levels within the Spanish Qualifications Framework for Higher Education. Selection process

Applications will be evaluated by a committee composed of the Vice-Rector for Research (or their delegate), the Principal Investigator of the project (or their delegate), and the Head of the Research and International Relations Department (or their delegate).

The Committee will select candidates according to the following criteria

Research Field Computer science » Computer systems

Education Level Master Degree or equivalent, * Master's degree (or equivalent) in Computer Science, Data Science, Music Informatics, or a related field.

• Proven expertise in data analysis, statistical modeling, and Machine Learning (especially Deep Learning).
• Expertise in software development with Python (PyTorch/TensorFlow, scikit-learn).
• Demonstrable experience handling symbolic music formats (MusicXML, MIDI).
• Advanced musical knowledge (music theory, harmony) is essential for domain understanding.

Ability to thrive in an interdisciplinary research environment.

Desirable:

• A PhD in one of the fields listed above.
• Specific experience with Large Language Models (LLMs), Transformers, and Natural Language Processing (NLP).
• Knowledge of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) techniques.

Specific Requirements

At the time of application, candidates must meet the following requirements:

• Hold Spanish nationality, or have a residence and work permit in Spain. If not available at the time of application, the applicant commits to undertaking the necessary legal procedures to obtain it.

In the case of degrees obtained from foreign universities, applicants must provide the official recognition (homologation) credential or the corresponding certificate of equivalence, in accordance with Royal Decree 889/2022 of October 18, which establishes the conditions and procedures for the recognition, equivalence, and validation of foreign higher education qualifications and regulates their correspondence to levels within the Spanish Qualifications Framework for Higher Education.

Languages ENGLISH

Level Good

Research Field Computer science, * Official higher education degree in a field of knowledge related to the project scope (up to 20 points).

• Demonstrable training and experience in the tasks defined for the project (up to 30 points).
• Demonstrable knowledge of English (minimum B1 level or equivalent) (up to 10 points).
• Other merits related to the knowledge required for the position described above (up to 10 points).