Open PhD position, starting summer/fall 2018

I have on open position for a PhD student – here is the official job-ad:

The group of Prof. Dirk Lorenz at the Institute of Analysis and Algebra has an open PhD position for a Scientific Assistant (75\% TV-L EG 13). The position is available as soon as possible and is initially limited to three years.

The scientific focus of the group includes optimization for inverse problems and machine learning, and mathematical imaging. Besides teaching and research, the position includes work in projects or preperation of projects.

We offer

• a dynamic team and a creative research and work environment
• mentoring and career planning programs (offered by TU Braunschweig), possibilities for personal qualification, language courses and the possibility to participate in international conferences
• flexible work hours and a family friendly work environment.

We are looking for candidates with

• a degree (Masters or Diploma) in mathematics above average,
• a focus on optimization and/or numerical mathematics and applications, e.g. imaging or machine learning
• programming skills in MATLAB, Julia and/or Python
• good knowledge of German and/or English
• capacity for teamwork, independent work, high level of motivation and organizational talent

Equally qualified severely challenged persons will be given preference. The TU Braunschweig especially encourages women to apply for the position. Please send your application including CV, copies of certificates and letters of recommendation (if any) in electronic form via e-mail to Dirk Lorenz.

Application deadline: 30.06.2018
Contact Prof. Dirk Lorenz | Tel. +49 531 391 7423| d.lorenz@tu-braunschweig.de

Please forward to anyone interested!

 

At the end of the tenure track

This is the last post in a series of posts (which was not intended to be a series). The series started with this post in which I reported some experience with job interviews I had in spring last year, and continued with this post which told what happened afterwards. The story ended with the paragraph “Now the final steps will be: Preparation of the next list of wishes, negotiations to stay and finally, the most difficult part, forming a well-founded decision.” That was about eleven month ago and was not totally wrong. Here is what happened then:

1. The Bleibeverhandlung

The Bleibeverhandlung (the negotiations to stay) is in principle similar to the negotiations with other universities. But there are important differences: The first one is due to the fact that there has been no official committee of the department involved so far and hence, the department has to form an opinion on how much they want to keep you. As far as I know this usually happens in an informal way and can be very different in different places and also the dean (or, in my case, the “speaker of the department”) may handle this in its own way. Also, you will not be involved in this step in any way (I think). The amount of support you get is crucial for the next steps. The department has to report its opinion to the dean (who is basically in control of the money here) and the dean has to decide about a strategy how to keep you (if your support is strong enough). Again, this is very different in different cases. Also, I do not know too much about this process, but at least there will be some communication between the dean and the president (or their offices). But after this procedure, the next steps of negotiations are basically the same as before: First negotiations with the dean, then with the president. Again, the first negotiation is somehow more important as many things are handled by the dean. In my case there was the question on which kind of position the department could keep me and how it could be arranged to fill this position with me. I have been Juniorprofessor (basically equal to assistant professor) and according to German law, there is not way of promotion to the “next level”. The university had to find an “open position for a professor”. But there was such a position (which I knew before since I had a tenure track position). The next obstruction was that, again according to German law, there usually has to be an official public announcement if such a position is to be filled. Consequently, anyone who is qualified could apply and should have a positive probability to get the job. However, I learned that my state has the possibility to fill a position without public announcement and it was part of my offer that my university “offered to start the initiation of this procedure”. It is somehow difficult to translate but the university could not even offer to initiate this “filling without public announcement” because this is something on which several committees has to agree.

2. The decision

Well, I had the official offer of my university pretty quick after negotiations. Basically, it was on par with the other offers (slightly better in some respects, slightly worse in others – but clearly no clear winner). The only caveat was, that there was no guarantee that I could get a permanent position because this depended on the decision of more committees. However, I had a formal statement that the president and the dean would initiate and support the procedure. Moreover, colleagues told me that my university had done a great job in keeping its promises in similar respects.

So, the decision was not easy. However, I decided not to play “ping-pong” with the other universities (which could be possible – but I can not tell you how that works) and to decide on basis of the facts I had after one round of negotiations. It was a tough and close decision which I do not comment in more detail here. But I decided to stay at TU Braunschweig.

3. Another application

Correct: I had to write another application! Although the process to “fill the position without public announcement” was granted by all committees (which took quite some time), that still meant that there had to be a normal procedure for an appointment: A committee had to be formed which had to agree on criteria for the position and had to ask me to apply for the position. Then, I applied and I even were invited to give a talk, a test lecture and had a job interview (all at my own university). Usually, there also had to be external referee reports but somebody found that there was the possibility to have enough external committee members present at the presentation and the job interview who then have their opinion recorded. After that, the committee had to form a decision and a one person list which went the usual way through administration. Then I got the offer in the official way and was even asked for another negotiations. But since the university really had realized the whole procedure totally as promised, I did not see any reason to insist on further negotiations. They had done anything as we had agreed on, and so I just said, that I agree to take the position on the basis of the offer they had formulated. This went smoothly and I accepted (officially by mail). The next step was that I had to go to the Amtsarzt (translates to “public health officer”) who had to check if was healthy enough for a lifetime professorship. (I had been at the Amtsarzt before I started my Juniorprofessorship, but then he only checked if I was healthy enough for six years…). Also, this went smoothly and a few days ago there was my “appointment for life”. (Last remark: I wondered that I did not had to repeat the “official oath” (Amtseid) because I had done this when I started the Juniorprofessorship, and this remains a lifetime.)

End of the story – indeed a happy end for me. The procedure was quite slow – but as far as I’ve heard all the people who have been involved did their best to make the procedure as quick as possible and I am very thankful for the effort and support of many people. It is just an awfully complicated procedure to appoint a professor in Germany which consists of many steps and many people and committees are involved…

 

What happens when you get a “Ruf” (i.e. a job offer)

In a previous post I wrote about my experience with three job interviews for math professorships in Germany I had earlier this year. In this post I’ll tell the next part of the story. As the previous post on this topic, this post is a mixture of a description of my own experience and the general procedure. I won’t spoil any names of people or institution here but if you are interested in more details, feel free to contact me.

1. The “Ruf”

It turned out that I actually got two job offers which are called “Ruf” in Germany (which translates to “call”). The first one arrived (unofficially) by phone once the committee had formed its list. Some time later I received another phone call when the list had passed the Fakultätsrat. The official letter from the Rektor needed some additional weeks to arrive. The other offer arrived first by email (from the Rektorats office) and by paper mail a few days later. The first thing I did after each offer arrived, was to contact the speaker of my math department (by phone), to inform my colleagues (by email) and to inform the dean and the president (both by email and paper mail). I am not sure about the precise protocol here, but I thought it would be best to put the cards on the table.

Both offer-letters were short and formal and the most important thing was that they asked me to prepare a document in which I list my “Vorstellungen zur Ausgestaltung und Ausstattung” (unofficially this is called the “list of wishes”) which is the next point I am going to discuss:

2. The “List of Wishes”

I had no real clue how this document should look like. I was lucky that I could ask friends and that they were so kind to send me documents they had prepared for similar occasions. However, I do not think that there any rules here. University Rektors, Kanzlers or Presidents have negotiations with people from all kinds of disciplines and I am sure that the list of wishes from neuro-biologists, mechanical engineers or philosophers will differ considerably from the one I wrote.

I think the list of wishes should contain:

• A section about what you plan to do. I think this one is difficult, because it should be concrete but honest and also be written in layman’s terms.
• A section about the workgroup which you have in mind. Especially important: How many associated positions for PhD students/teaching assistants do you expect the university to provide? Do you bring any third party funded people?
• A description of the office space you need.
• A list of what you wish for as “start-up funding” (buying computers, laptops, furniture, books, servers,…).
• Your wishes for a yearly budget (for traveling and guests).
• What salary do you expect? Are there special reasons for a bonus?
• Any other circumstances which you find important.

Moreover, you should propose a date (or several) for the negotiations.

I found this list of wishes particularly difficult because it depends largely on the structure and habits of the particular department/faculty and the university. Moreover, some things will be handled by the department and some things will be handled by the Rektorat and it is not always clear a-priori who is responsible for what. In any case it is helpful to speak to the dean of the faculty and any other people you know in the department to find out how this is organized. E.g. usually the organization of secretaries is basically fixed, as well as office space. It is in general a good idea (if not even necessary) to speak to the dean prior to the official negotiation because several things will be handled by the dean and not by the Rektor and if you did not agree with the dean about these things you can get in awkward situations in the negotiations. The salary is always discussed with the Rektor and the Kanzler (not with the Dean), there are a lot of rules according to which salary of professors is organized in Germany. There are federal laws, and university laws concerning the base salary and any additional bonuses. Moreover, these bonuses can be given permanently or temporary. If they are temporary then can be linked to a “target agreement” and this target agreement can or can not contain that the bonus will turn into permanent in case of success… I’ve heard that the base rule here is that it is better to overshoot than to undershoot.

Once you’ve sent your list of wishes you have to wait again. The Rektorat has to find a date for the negotiation and since several important people are involved (to be precise: Rektor, Kanzler and Dean), this may take some time. But after some time, I was contacted (by mail or phone) to agree on a date for the next important step: The negotiation.

3. The negotiation

In both case I was a little bit nervous when the day of negotiation came. As preparation I read several “Gesetzesblätter” again and moreover, tried to get information about the negotiation partners (especially the Rektor and the Kanzler because I knew the Deans already).

The actual negotiations took something between half an hour and one hour and besides Rektor, Kanzler, Dean and myself there was somebody from personnel administration. In both cases the conversation was basically conducted by the Rektor and started with some small talk.

In my first negotiation, the Rektor opened the official part by asking me to explain my research plans in layman’s terms. He seemed honestly interested and tried to suggest connections with other areas of expertise of the university. Next we moved into the list of wishes and then the Kanzler took over. We went over my list of wishes part by part and it was basically that the Kanzler said what the university could offer and what not. Sometimes the dean of the faculty was asked if the faculty could supply something but it seems that this was also prepared in advance. When it came to positions for research assistants, I was also asked about my plans to get third-party funding and how I would like to see and organize my work group. The last point was the negotiation of the salary. Here the dean left (somehow, salary is a highly confidential thing here) and the discussion was basically between the Kanzler and me. The Kanzler tried to briefly explain how the system for extra bonuses works and why he would only offer much less than I wished. I had a few things to reply and in the end, I did not feel that the negotiation ended with a definitive decision. However, they said that I should present my other offers when I get them and that they would be willing to think about outdoing them. Finally, we agreed on a decision deadline for me. The official offer arrived (first by email than in paper form) about a week later. I forwarded the official offer to the second university for the preparation of the next negotiations. I don’t know if this is the usual practice but again, I think that playing with cards on the table in easier here.

My second negotiation directly started with the discussion of the salary (there was no question about my field of research). The Rektorat had prepared a nice tableaux in which they illustrated my current situation, the other offer, and their offer side by side and basically they just topped the others by a small but non-negligible amount. Next we went over my list of wishes as in the first negotiation: The Kanzler said what they can offer and I could comment. Again, the last thing was to agree on a decision deadline for me. Also, the Rektor suggested that I could contact him I would “conditionally accept the offer” depending on smaller things (I am not totally sure what this could be, but salary can definitely be a point here).

In conclusion: I was a bit surprised that the negotiation was kind of a pleasant and open discussion but also that not too much negotiation actually happened (but this probably due to my limited “negotiation capabilities”…).

If I had to extract a general rule of thumb: Getting start-up funding for computers and furniture is easy (at least as a mathematician), increasing the yearly budget is harder, getting more positions for research assistants is hard if not impossible.

4. Next steps

After I had informed my faculty about the job offer, the administration asked, if they should prepare for “Bleibeverhandlungen” (negotiations to stay), i.e. if there was a chance that I would like to stay rather than leave and also if I truly consider to accept an offer (my honest response was that there was a chance for both, but I’ve heard that it could be a disadvantage to give a strong tendency at this stage). Some weeks later I received an official letter from the President of my university in which he invited me to negotiations to stay and asked me to present the official offers when I receive them along with another list of wishes…

Now the final steps will be: Preparation of the next list of wishes, negotiations to stay and finally, the most difficult part, forming a well-founded decision.