BizDevOps: Integration of business and development operations for the economic sustainability of digital businesses

a. Project Description

Software has transitioned from a tool and a business enabler to a product by itself. As such it does not only have a technical manifestation, but it also carries business and economic value for companies. Decisions made with respect to the design, deployment, evolution or quality of the software can affect this business aspect and impact the economic position of the companies, especially smaller ones. In addition, while changes on the technical level are fast and frequent and require a methodology like DevOps to be tackled in a continuous manner with minimum disruption, this is not the case for business operations. The goal of this project is to merge the technical and business aspect of the software product in order to improve the efficiency of decision-making with respect to technical changes (i.e., implementing a new feature, fixing a bug or adapting the software to an external change) while considering their impact on the economic aspect of the software system.

b. Tasks and responsibilities

The hired researcher will be expected to conduct an independent research program relevant to the description above, supervise graduate students working on similar projects, participate in applications for funding and author papers for top-tier journals and conferences including IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, IEEE Transaction on Big Data, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems, and conferences, such as SEAMS, ACSOS, ICSE, ICPC and others. The position is open for Winter, Summer or Fall 2024.

c. Required skills

The candidate will be asked to demonstrate adequate understanding or expertise in the following topics through relevant courses (on undergraduate or graduate level) or through relevant publications in international conferences or journals. The candidate should consider applying if they have the expert-level skills and at least 50% of the good-level skills.

• Expert programming skills, preferably in python.
• Expert knowledge on cloud computing and distributed systems.
• Good knowledge in any of these optimization techniques: linear programming OR dynamic programming OR control theory.
• Good knowledge on distributed data analytics systems, such as MapReduce.
• Good knowledge on container technology, such as Docker or Kubernetes.
• Adequate knowledge on machine learning models and methods.
• Adequate knowledge on simulation methods, like Monte Carlo, and benchmarking techniques.
• Adequate knowledge on statistical methods and tests.
• Good understanding of economics and basic business concepts will be appreciated.

d. Application process

Upon contacting the professor to inquire for the position, the student is also asked to submit the following documents:

• A copy of the most recent version of their CV or Resume.
• A copy of the transcripts of their undergraduate and master studies.
• A motivation letter highlighting the fitness of the candidate on the project, or the general area of DevOps, AIOps and SRE.
• The names and contact information of 3 referees.

• A review for one of the three following articles. The review (maximum one page) should contain a summary of the paper, its strengths and weaknesses and comments about the improvement or extension of the work presented in the paper.

  • Brosch, F., Gitzel, R., Koziolek, H. and Krug, S., 2010. Combining architecture-based software reliability predictions with financial impact calculations. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 264(1), pp.3-17.
  • McGibbon, T. and Nicholls, D., 2002, January. Making the (business) case for software reliability. In Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium. 2002 Proceedings (Cat. No. 02CH37318) (pp. 285-292). IEEE.
  • Jäpel, L.M. and Wedel, F.H., 2019. BizDevOps: a systematic literature review. FH Wedel, Wedel.
• An example of a proposal (as evidence of writing) written by the student for a research project relevant to the position or of a topic selected by the student. The proposal should include background, motivation, methodology and a plan for evaluation. The proposal should be maximum 2 pages.
• The candidate student should submit these documents by email to the professor with the subject “BizDevOps PDF 2024”. No email will be considered unless it has this subject and the required attachments (CV, transcripts, review, proposal). In the email, the student should express their interest to the position and provide the corresponding evidence to the required skills as this appears in the attached documents.

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