Job Title: Research Fellow – Full Stack Developer

Post Status: Specific Purpose Contract – 13 months

Research Centre: Learnovate Centre, Trinity College Dublin

Location: Unit 28, TTEC, Grand Canal Quay, Dublin 2, D02 N638, Ireland

Job Category and Level: Appointment will be made on the IUA Post -doctoral Researcher Salary Scale (Research Fellow Point 4 -€73,239)

Hours of Work  9am – 5pm, blended working

The purpose of this role is to design, lead and implement a defined programme of research and full stack software engineering in support of the Abilta project, developing, evaluating and translating innovative AI-enabled technologies into robust, scalable applications. Working under the direction of the Principal Investigator, the Research Fellow – Full Stack Developer will exercise a high degree of independence in shaping and delivering the research programme, contributing to the project’s technical architecture, software development, dissemination of findings and overall research impact. The postholder will work collaboratively within a multidisciplinary team of researchers, technologists, user experience experts and industry partners, while conducting all research in accordance with the University’s Research Integrity Policy and other relevant policies. The training and development relevant to this position will be completed within the period of the contract.

Learnovate is a research centre hosted by Trinity College Dublin, funded by Enterprise Ireland and supported by the IDA with 15 years of successful multi-million euro industry-led research. Learnovate provides thought leadership to the world’s edtech, learning tech and learning & development community on the innovative use of education and learning technology for maximum organisation and learner success.

The Abilta project will develop a next-generation behavioural insight platform integrating neuroscience, psychology and artificial intelligence to deliver transformative leadership and team development through improved decision-making. Co-developed by Professor Ian Robertson and Dr Fiona O’Doherty and based on decades of brain research and clinical practice, along with the Learnovate Centre at Trinity College Dublin, Abilta will develop a proprietary Cognitive Insight Engine to assess and decode behavioural signals, pinpoint emotional friction points and deliver precision-targeted micro-interventions backed up where necessary by tailored digital training. Abilta is designed for Leadership Development functions in large, regulated and unregulated organisations, where poor decision-making under pressure carries financial, operational and regulatory cost.

Funding Information
Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund

This is a list of the tasks, duties and responsibilities for the role is not intended to be exclusive and may be adjusted dependent on the area of research.

• Conduct individual and/or collaborative research to the highest ethical standards in a variety of settings
• Engage in the dissemination of the results of the research in which you are engaged in to the relevant research stakeholders in the appropriate form
• Engage in the wider research and scholarly activities of your research group, centre or unit and contribute to its profile by participating in promotion activity
• Take responsibility for, manage and conduct administrative and management tasks associated with the research programme
• A commitment to ongoing research and publications
• Work closely with the Learnovate Technology Lead to develop and implement the Abilta technology
• Actively develop end-user applications and backend technologies that have a real impact on decision-making in the real worldHelp to manage and maintain cloud-based infrastructure to support the development, testing and deployment of Abilta

This is a list of the tasks, duties and responsibilities for the role.  It is not intended to be exclusive and may be adjusted dependent on the area of research.

• Conduct individual and/or collaborative research to the highest ethical standards in a variety of settings
• Engage in the dissemination of the results of the research in which you are engaged in to the relevant research stakeholders in the appropriate form
• Engage in the wider research and scholarly activities of your research group, centre or unit and contribute to its profile by participating in promotion activity
• Take responsibility for, manage and conduct administrative and management tasks associated with the research programme
• A commitment to ongoing research and publications
• Work closely with the Learnovate Technology Lead to develop and implement the Abilta technology
• Actively develop end-user applications and backend technologies that have a real impact on decision-making in the real world
• Help to manage and maintain cloud-based infrastructure to support the development, testing and deployment of Abilta

This section sets out the knowledge, skills and attributes the post-holder will need for successful performance in the role.

Qualifications

• PhD (four years of equivalent full-time research experience may be considered in lieu of PhD) and significant industrial experience

Knowledge & Experience (Essential & Desirable)

• Have experience building:
  • web-based tools using JavaScript (REACT, Angular) (essential)
  • backend development and APIs using JavaScript (Express.js, Nest.js, Loopback) or similar backend technologies (essential)
  • relational and NoSQL databases using MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc. (essential)
• Experience designing, developing and maintaining mobile applications for iOS and Android using React Native, Flutter or native development frameworks (essential)
• Experience implementing application security best practices, including authentication, authorisation, secure API design and protection against common web vulnerabilities (essential)
• Experience working with identity and access management technologies such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT and Single Sign-On (SSO) (essential)
• Experience implementing data encryption for data at rest and in transit using industry-standard protocols and practices (essential)

Skills & Competencies

• Demonstrable experience working across frontend, backend and infrastructure management (dev/ops)
• Have familiarity with: Version control tools such as git through GitLab, GitHub, etc.
• Build automation / continuous integration tools such as GitHub Actions or Jenkins
• Containerisation concepts and technologies such as Docker
• Cloud computing environments such as AWS
• API development and testing tools such as Postman, Insomnia, Swagger, etc.
• Show an understanding of:
  • Service-oriented architecture
  • RESTful APIs
  • Unit and functional testing
• ‘AI-Adjacent Engineering’
  • AI Orchestration & Integration
    • Model Implementation: Familiarity with integrating major LLM APIs (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, or Hugging Face) into production environments.
    • Experience implementing AI-enabled features such as chat interfaces, summarisation, document intelligence, search, and workflow automation.
    • LLM Frameworks: Familiarity with orchestration tools like LangChain, LlamaIndex, or Haystack to build complex AI workflows.
    • RAG Architecture: Understanding of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)—specifically, how to connect LLMs to external data sources to provide grounded, factual responses.
  • Data & Vector Management
    • Vector Databases: Familiarity with vector storage and search engines such as Pinecone, ChromaDB, etc.
    • Embeddings: A basic understanding of text embeddings and how they are used for semantic search and similarity matching.
• Experience of working in an agile environment and adapting to change
• Demonstrate a desire to work in a startup-type environment with a broad scope of ownership and a high degree of autonomy.
• Communicate effectively with diverse groups: entrepreneurs, managers, potential users, scientists.
• Demonstrate a learning and growth-focused mindset and a strong desire to share your skills and learn from those around you
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Strong written and verbal English proficiency

Personal Attributes

• The ability to generate new ideas and build on existing to generate unique concepts and solutions with integrity
• The ability to contribute to broader organisational and management processes
• The ability to manage self, time, resources and people
• The capacity to work independently on research projects as well as part of a team
• If you require a visa to work in Ireland this must already be in place
• This role is based in Dublin, Ireland.

In Trinity there are 6 Core Competencies that are applicable to all roles across a range of professional, administrative and support jobs, unlike specialist or technical skills which may be job specific. They provide a common language for describing performance and the abilities/attributes displayed by individuals. They focus on ‘how’ tasks are achieved, not ‘what’ is achieved.

Below is a summary definition of the 6 Core Competencies.

For queries on this role please contact tom.pollock@learnovatecentre.org