Jobs

We are currently recruiting on all junior levels of the scientific career, we are looking in particular for Bachelor and Master students, PhD students, and postdocs.

This page includes open positions and frequently asked questions for joining our group or visiting us at Saarland University.
The Information Security and Cryptography group is part of CISPA – the German Research Center for IT-Security, Privacy and Accountability – and of the Computer Science Department at Saarland University.
We are looking for outstanding students to join the Computer Science Department and in particular our group.
However, please note that students are not admitted to one particular research group or individual faculty member, but to Saarland University. Therefore, it is mandatory that you get general admission to the course of studies you are interested in.
In the following, we provide information for students currently enrolled at Saarland University and for external students that intend to pursue a Bachelor/Master/PhD in our group.

I am willing to do everything in my power to guide my PhD students into a promising career. In return, I expect an outstanding commitment from all my PhD students to the work they are doing.

Michael Backes

Prerequisite for external students: You need to get admitted to Saarland University’s Bachelor’s program for Cybersecurity (details can be found here ) or for Computer Science (details can be found here ). After your successfull enrollment in the Bachelor’s program, you can take courses at our chair and get in contact with us.

Bachelor’s theses: If your are interested in writing a thesis at our group, please write an e-mail to thesis(at)mail-infsec(dot)cs(dot)uni-saarland(dot)de to make an appointment where we can discuss both your ideas and our open topics.

Please note:

• Students that already attended courses at our group will receive preferred consideration. For students in the normal computer science programs we highly recommend that you attend Cryptography and/or Security, maybe complemented with suitable advanced courses if you are interested in writing a thesis at our group.
• We intend to keep the number of Bachelor’s students at a reasonable size, such that we can still work closely with them. In the ideal case, a thesis in our group leads to the first scientific publication. In fact, coming up with a publication constitutes the best way to demonstrate potential for a PhD.

Prerequisite for external students: You need to get admitted to Saarland University’s Master’s program of computer science (details can be found here ) or the International EIT ICT Labs Master Program for Security and Privacy (details can be found here ). After your successfull enrollment in the Master’s program, you can take courses at our chair and get in contact with us.

Master’s theses: If your are interested in writing a thesis at our group, please write an e-mail to thesis(at)mail-infsec(dot)cs(dot)uni-saarland(dot)de to make an appointment where we can discuss both your ideas and our open topics.

Please note:

• Students that already attended courses at our group will receive preferred consideration. For students in the normal computer science programs we highly recommend that you attend Cryptography and/or Security, maybe complemented with suitable advanced courses if you are interested in writing a thesis at our group.
• We intend to keep the number of Master’s students at a reasonable size, such that we can still work closely with them. In the ideal case, a thesis in our group leads to the first scientific publication. In fact, coming up with a publication constitutes the best way to demonstrate potential for a PhD.

Prerequisite for external students: In order to pursue your PhD in our group, you first have to get admitted to the Saarbrücken Graduate School of Computer Science . You can find detailed information on the program which can be entered either after achieving a bachelor’s or a master’s degree here . Please mention in your formal application to the Graduate School that you would like to work with our group and, in particular, Prof. Backes. The admission is highly competetive and many students get financial support. For detailed information on funding options, please refer to the information provided by the Saarbrücken Graduate School of Computer Science and the prestigious International Max Planck Research School for Computer Science .

In order to start a PhD you have to show high potential and have a strong academic record, in particular in security-related lectures. It’s the time of your Master’s studies or your Preparatory Phase at the Saarbrücken Graduate School of Computer Science that you should use for proving capable of PhD research in order to lift you to a PhD position. From the student’s side, this requires you to actively look for an advisor and talk to people. From our side, it requires us to actively look for people that have the potential to become good PhD students. Similar to what we stated for Bachelor’s/Master’s students, we intend to keep the number of PhD students at a reasonable size in order to ensure that all PhD students are closely supervised.

Post-doctoral positions are available for one or two years. Please send your application (CV, publication list, research plan for your stay, names of three references with e-mail addresses, and intended period of stay) to Michael Backes . Applications may be submitted electronically; in this case they should consist of Postscript or pdf files only. Please avoid using MS Word.

We offer a limited number of internships to outstanding students. If you are interested in doing an internship in our group, please send your application including your CV and, if available, your publication list (postscript or pdf file) to application(at)mail-infsec(dot)cs(dot)uni-saarland(dot)de

If you would like to visit us for a few weeks/months/a year, please send your CV and a short description of your plans for the visit to Michael Backes .