Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (BTH) is a specialized university with close collaboration with industry and society. Operations are conducted from a campus in Karlskrona. As a state authority, BTH conducts education and research with high quality and a clear focus on development, innovation, and societal benefit.
The Department of Software Engineering comprises approximately 50 people from 20 different countries. Our tradition in software engineering dates back to 1990 when we started Sweden's first education in the field in collaboration with Ericsson. The department's research and education environment, SERL Sweden – Software Engineering Research and Education Lab Sweden, has since expanded and is now positioned as a world leader in software development research. The department is responsible for education in software engineering from bachelor level to doctoral level.
Job Description
As a doctoral researcher in this position, you are expected to investigate how AI agents support and transform the requirements gathering and development process (AI4RE), as well as how continuous runtime adaptation of AI-intensive systems challenges conventional requirements engineering methods (RE4AI). The work explores how agent-based pipelines—agents that support requirements gathering, runtime drift detection, and specification—introduce new adversarial attack surfaces that conventional RE methods are not equipped to handle. This requires new approaches to requirements provenance, stakeholder trust modeling, and continuous validation.
The project delves into the security and robustness of continuous requirements development, focusing on threat vectors such as data poisoning of evidence streams at runtime, adversarial manipulation of stakeholders across multiple requirements gathering cycles, and prompt injection attacks targeting LLM-based RE agents. The research is also planned to investigate how fundamental concepts such as requirements completeness, traceability, verifiability, and human oversight should be redefined in the presence of probabilistic outputs, non-deterministic agent behavior, and continuous data dependencies, as well as how these factors affect the reliability and regulatory compliance of developed requirements artifacts.
The research will be conducted in collaboration with various industry partners. The main work tasks include:
Investigating how agent-based RE pipelines introduce adversarial vulnerabilities at the data, stakeholder, and agent levels.
Developing a threat model for continuous requirements engineering, including attack vectors and their effects throughout the requirements development pipeline.
Designing an architecture for adversarially robust continuous RE, including provenance tracking, stakeholder trust mechanisms, prompt injection defenses, and verification gates with human involvement.
Analyzing regulatory compliance implications of continuously changing requirements under emerging regulations such as the EU AI Act, with a focus on high-risk AI systems in healthcare, critical infrastructure, and low-code platforms.
For this position, we are seeking a candidate with a background in software engineering, requirements management, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity.
Swedish regulations and benefits for doctoral researchers apply to this position. The doctoral researcher will develop an individual study plan in software engineering together with supervisors. The position may include up to 20 percent other duties, such as teaching at bachelor and advanced levels.
Eligibility Requirements
To be employed as a doctoral researcher, the applicant must be or become admitted to a doctoral program.
Eligible for admission to doctoral studies is a person who has completed a degree at advanced level in a technical, mathematical, or natural science field or who has otherwise acquired knowledge to be able to benefit from doctoral studies in the subject.
The eligibility requirements must be met at the time of employment, not at the time of application for the position.
Meritorious Competencies and Experience
Beyond the requirements described in the job description and the eligibility requirements for employment, the following degrees, competencies, and experience are considered meritorious:
Master's degree or Civil Engineer degree in software engineering, software development, data science, AI, or computer science.
Documented professional experience in software development.
Experience or interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning development.
Very strong written and oral communication skills in English.
Place of work: Karlskrona.
Full-time equivalent: 100%.
Start date: Early fall 2026, exact start date by agreement.
Duration: Fixed-term employment for up to 4 years of research time. Initially, the employment covers one year, after which it is renewed for a maximum of two years at a time provided that the individual study plan is followed. The employment may include up to 20% other duties, in which case the duration may be extended to a maximum of 5 years.
Application deadline: August 15, 2026.
Your application should include:
A description of your background and experience in the areas relevant to the position.
A curriculum vitae (CV).
Official transcripts and course certificates issued by your institution.
Contact information for two references.
The earliest date on which employment can commence.
An attachment with any existing publications (if relevant).
A link to your thesis (most recent/highest degree).
You apply through our recruitment system by clicking the "apply" button below. If you have protected personal information, you should not register your application in our recruitment system. Instead, contact the HR partner listed as the contact person in the announcement for more information. Instructions for applicants are available at https://www.bth.se/om-bth/jobba-hos-oss/lediga-jobb. As an applicant, you are responsible for ensuring that your application is complete in accordance with the announcement and the instructions. BTH welcomes applicants with different backgrounds and experiences. We actively work to leverage the qualities that diversity and equal gender distribution bring to our operations. We have selected media for this recruitment and therefore decline contact from advertising sales or other sales representatives for recruitment services.Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (BTH) is a specialized university with close collaboration with industry and society. Operations are conducted from a campus in Karlskrona. As a state authority, BTH conducts education and research with high quality and a clear focus on development, innovation, and societal benefit.
The Department of Software Engineering comprises approximately 50 people from 20 different countries. Our tradition in software engineering dates back to 1990 when we started Sweden's first education in the field in collaboration with Ericsson. The department's research and education…