PhD Student for Testing for AI M/F

WHAT WE OFFER Our company culture is focused on helping our employees enable innovation by building breakthroughs together. How? We focus every day on building the foundation for tomorrow and creating a workplace that embraces differences, values flexibility, and is aligned to our purpose-driven and future-focused work. We offer a highly collaborative, caring team environment with a strong focus on learning and development, recognition for your individual contributions, and a variety of benefit options for you to choose from. Apply now! ABOUT US (TEAM) Maintaining security is a constantly shifting task, and we need to respond with continuous learning and research. The portfolio of SAP Security Research contains those topics that we believe are most important for SAP’s security future. SAP’s vision to secure business is built on 3 ideals: Zero-Vulnerability, to harden the software by eliminating vulnerabilities, Defensible Application, to enable the software to identify and prevent attacks, and Zero-Knowledge, to make any theft of data useless through encryption. Considering these aspects, SAP Security Research covers the following focal areas: Anonymization for Big Data, Secure Internet of Things, Software security analysis, Open-source analysis, Deceptive application, Applied cryptography, Quantum technology, and Machine Learning as enabler for the next generation of security. PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES Despite their success in many applications, AI/ML algorithms have also introduced potential security and privacy issues, including test-time evasion via adversarial examples, training data poisoning, and privacy-related violations like membership-inference and model-extraction attacks. Even though these vulnerabilities have been widely demonstrated, systematic security and privacy testing methodologies for AI/ML models are still in the dawn, leaving AI/ML developers unaware of the corresponding risks when deploying such systems in practical applications. In this PhD, we aim to: * study the impact of testing software applications when AI/ML components are used, * identify what makes difficult to test for security and privacy issues in AI/ML components, and * develop novel testing methodologies for security and privacy issues that can be integrated with existing frameworks to facilitate their widespread adoption. All together these research results will be used to impact the SAP development environment with a toolkit that can be used by developers at SAP to identify vulnerabilities introduced by AI/ML algorithms in the application pipeline, quantify their impact and associated risks, and recommend suitable countermeasures. Experimental evidence of the research results against real case studies will be key to demonstrate the overall effectiveness. EXPECTATIONS AND TASKS The successful candidate will be integrated within our research team and will be a first-class actor of our research activity. Besides actively participating to the Mission and Goals of SAP Security Research, writing publications and filling patents will be strongly encouraged. PROFILE/EDUCATION/SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES * University Level: MSc (top 10% performer in university will be favored) or engineer degree * Fluency in English (working language), French, German or other language is a plus but not a prerequisite * Excellent oral and written communication skills * Creative and analytical mind * Willing to work with cutting edge technologies * Knowledge of computer security, privacy and/or machine learning * Good skills in modelling, analysis and programming (Python, Java, JavaScript) * Good skills in using modern devops tools (Git, Docker, Debuggers, Jenkins, …) * Willingness to work around Security, Privacy and Machine Learning related technologies * Possibility to travel (mainly in Europe). PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE * None required We are SAP SAP innovations help more than 400,000 customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with 200 million users and more than 100,000 employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, we build breakthroughs, together. Our inclusion promise SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better and more equitable world. SAP is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provide accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: Americas: Careers.NorthAmerica@sap.com or Careers.LatinAmerica@sap.com, APJ: Careers.APJ@sap.com, EMEA: Careers@sap.com. EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability: Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, age, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability. Successful candidates might be required to undergo a background verification with an external vendor. Requisition ID:313196 | Work Area: Software-Design and Development | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Student | Employment Type: Intern |