Highly motivated students with above-average academic records are encouraged to apply for a traineeship or Master-thesis project at the Software Improvement Group. We offer a pleasant and challenging working environment and a competitive trainee fee.

If you have any queries, or if you are interested, please contact Joost Visser on:
E. j.visser@sig.eu
T. +31 20 314 09 50

Stories from current and past trainees at SIG
  
Dennis Bijlsma:
"The software quality as measured by the SIG has a strong influence on whether the software is maintainable. The focus of my research for the MSc Software Engineering at the University of Amsterdam is to determine if high technical quality leads to more efficient issue handling.
The SIG is a great environment for working on this research. There is a lot of expertise here, related to research but also to the industry. People are helpful, and always ready to answer any questions I might have."
 
Frank Versnel:
"A tool has been developed to simplify some of the work done by SIG's employees. The tool automatically generates alerts based on important events in the development and maintenance of a software project. My research is about an evaluation and improvement of that tool; making sure that it works as intended and to develop ideas on how it can be improved.
During my research I am very well supervised by the people of SIG's research department; discussing my activities with them every week. During these sessions they advise me on how to proceed with my research."

Christiaan Ypma:
"The Software Improvement Group has carried out a substantial number of SRAs in recent years on software systems from a broad spectrum of applications and technologies. These analyses have been aggregated into the SIG benchmark, which now incorporates the measurements from hundreds of systems. My research consists of analysing this data in order then to build a model using various data mining techniques (such as CART and Neural Networks) which allows software quality to be predicted in terms of maintainability. This final project is part of the two year Master’s course in Applied Computing Science which I am taking at Utrecht University."

Bart Luijten:
"My Master’s project is aimed at accessing the information which is stored in the issue tracking systems which are used during the development and maintenance of software systems. These contain a large amount of information about problems which occur in the software of which virtually no use has been made so far.
I am examining the relationship between the SIG quality assessment for a system and the associated issue tracker. I am thereby trying to find an answer to the question of whether a system with a higher quality rating is also less affected by problems, or whether these problems can be resolved more quickly in software which is deemed to have better maintainability. SIG is the ideal internship for this, because of the large amount of software engineering expertise combined with the required theoretical background."

Graduation date: February 2010
Graduation result: 7,5 (out of 10)

 
Mário Filipe Pinhal:
"I am currently at SIG working on my master thesis topic "An Integrated Environment for Software Assessment" - my final project to graduate in my Master of Informatics at University of Minho (Portugal).
Due to my recently discovered interest on Software Specification, and the recent work of Tim van Laer, I was proposed to design and develop an integrated system to support SIG's software quality and risk assessments.
This system will be based on the integration of the various tools available at SIG into a single graphical user interface, improving the control and efficiency of these assessments, as also optimizing the workflow of all internal work and tasks that are carried daily by SIG employees.
Since I’m at SIG, I’ve been carrying a deep research of its systems, participating in all kinds of meetings, sessions and discussions so that I am able to standardize and improve the process where it is most valuable and needed. Its being a unique opportunity and I am the most pleased with the work I’m doing as also the work environment and my colleagues."

Graduation date: September 2009
Graduation result: 14 (out of 20)

 
Peter Rademaker:
"When performing Software Risk Assessments on industry-size software systems, SIG retrieves large quantities of software dependencies from programme text. Manipulating these dependencies for the purpose of obtaining high-level overviews of internal architecture and information flow is a challenging task.
As part of my graduation project, I will be reviewing external solutions for graph and dependency manipulation and comparing them to the graph library that SIG uses currently. I will use the results of this comparison to extend and/or complement the current internal solution. SIG allows me to apply the theoretical aspects of my Software Technology Master's degree to real-life situations. This makes SIG a very interesting place in which to conduct a Master's thesis within the field of Software Engineering."

Graduation date: December 2008
Graduation result: 7,5 (out of 10)

Download: Thesis P. Rademaker

Tim van Laer:
"SIG is currently experiencing considerable growth in its Software Risk Assessments and Monitoring activities. Because of this growth, I am working on a practical model of these activities to improve the efficiency and quality of the SRAs. This model should make it possible to implement a prototype application that supports the SRA process.
This work is the conclusion of a one-year Master's programme in software engineering at the University of Amsterdam. SIG has a lot of in-house software engineering experts, which makes it an interesting company to work for and gives you the opportunity to learn a lot."

Graduation date: August 2008
Graduation result: 7 (out of 10)

Frank Oppedijk
"I am doing the thesis work of my one-year Master's programme in Software Engineering at SIG. My research consists of comparing (a limited version of) the SIG maintainability model to the well-known Maintainability Index by Coleman and Oman.  The results show that both maintainability models have a significant correlation. Furthermore, the research suggests that both models work equally well on both procedural and object-oriented systems. My research concluded that the SIG maintainability model is the more sensitive of the two, enabling it to give early warning signals, which is useful for tracking the changes to a system's maintainability over time."

Graduation date: August 2008
Graduation result: 8 (out of 10)

Zeeger Lubsen:
"My thesis project is part of my Master's degree in Computer Science of Delft University of Technology at SIG. The subject of my thesis is the co-evolution of production and test code. This involves analysing the testing process of software systems during their entire life-span by using visualisations and metrics. Is testing performed in phases, or can we clearly distinguish a test-driven development cycle? By answering these and other questions, we can obtain a clearer insight into the quality of the software.
The combination of academic backgrounds and industrial applications makes SIG a very interesting company to acquire valuable knowledge and hands-on experience."
 
Graduation date: July 2008
Graduation result: 9 (out of 10)

Reinier Vis:
"I am currently working on my Master's thesis at the Software Improvement Group to conclude my Software Technology study at Utrecht University. My research at SIG focuses on analysing polymorphism in the C# programming language, in particular the use and relations of Generics in programmes. SIG offers a working environment that enables students to put the theoretical components of their study into practice. Furthermore, the variety of projects offers ample scope for further research. Software quality is a major issue at SIG, including of course for employees and trainees. This makes SIG an extremely interesting proposition for students engaged in Software Engineering."
 
Graduation date: September 2007
Graduation result: 7 (out of 10)
 
Huib van den Brink:
"SIG offers placement programmes that enable you to learn many things about software quality. By observing the weak spots of existing applications, you gain a better understanding of the characteristics of properly implemented software. By applying some basic rules, you can experience first-hand how quality is achieved. This is partly because, as a trainee, you are expected to meet SIG's stringent quality standards. During your placement, you will be using parsers and conducting algorithms in order to construct automatic programme analyses. Furthermore, the development team is a tight-knit unit, providing you with a direct link to your supervisor and fellow-developers."
 
Graduation date: January 2007
Graduation result: 8 (out of 10)
 
Gin-Lung Cheng:
"I am Cheng, a student from Delft University of Technology. I am currently doing my thesis project at SIG. The aim of the project is to design and build a software analysis tool that can detect security vulnerabilities in large software systems. SIG gives me the challenging opportunity to work on software that will be used in a real business environment. So if you are looking for a challenging internship, look no further! SIG is the company you are looking for."
 
Graduation date: February 2007
Graduation result: 7 (out of 10)