UT Austin is adding faculty and research staff across more than a dozen colleges and several major research centers, with the heaviest hiring in engineering, computing, health sciences, and the geosciences. The push follows new state and federal research funding, including a UT Austin-led semiconductor initiative, and steady growth in sponsored projects. For candidates, that means openings are appearing faster than the university’s central jobs page can always surface them.
The University of Texas at Austin employs more than 20,000 faculty and staff across its main campus, the J.J. Pickle Research Campus, and field stations such as the McDonald Observatory in West Texas and the Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas. Postings range from tenure-track assistant professors to research scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and research engineering associates. The hiring is not evenly spread: some units are replacing departing staff, while others are building new teams around funded programs.
The Colleges and Schools Hiring Faculty Now
The Cockrell School of Engineering is running searches across mechanical, electrical, computer, and aerospace engineering, with new roles tied to semiconductor packaging, energy storage, and robotics. The College of Natural Sciences is recruiting in computer science, statistics, and data science, alongside a smaller number of positions in chemistry and physics. Dell Medical School continues to add clinician-educators and research-track faculty as it builds its clinical and research programs in Austin.
The McCombs School of Business lists openings in accounting, finance, and the Information, Risk, and Operations Management department. The College of Liberal Arts, the university’s largest college, posts dozens of positions each year across history, economics, psychology, and languages, though most searches are for specific subfields rather than general hires. The Moody College of Communication and the School of Information are also hiring, often for roles that blend teaching with applied research. The School of Civic Leadership, which admitted its first cohort in 2024, is building a faculty in political theory, American government, and constitutional studies.
Many of these searches are advertised on discipline-specific job boards before they appear on the university’s central employment site. Candidates who wait for a single weekly digest can miss short application windows, especially for visiting and lecturer positions.
Research Facilities and Institutes With Active Openings
UT Austin’s research enterprise now exceeds $800 million in annual sponsored expenditures, and much of the hiring for research staff happens inside its organized research units rather than academic departments.
The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) hires systems administrators, research scientists, and software engineers to support the Frontera and Lonestar6 supercomputers. TACC’s current openings are listed on its careers page, and they reflect the center’s focus on high-performance computing for scientific simulation and AI workloads.
Applied Research Laboratories (ARL:UT), the university’s Department of Defense University Affiliated Research Center, is one of the largest single sources of research jobs in Austin. ARL:UT posts openings for engineers and scientists in sonar systems, cybersecurity, space science, and environmental characterization. Its employment page at arlut.utexas.edu typically lists more than 100 active positions at any time.
The Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE), a UT Austin-led semiconductor initiative supported by state funding, is hiring research engineers and materials scientists as it builds advanced packaging and prototyping capabilities. The institute is part of a broader push that includes the Microelectronics Research Center and the Center for Electromechanics, both on the Pickle Research Campus. Candidates with cleanroom experience, semiconductor process engineering, or hardware test backgrounds are in demand.
Key research units hiring now include:
- Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) — supercomputing systems, data analytics, and research software engineering.
- Applied Research Laboratories (ARL:UT) — defense-related engineering and science roles in sonar, cybersecurity, and space systems.
- Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE) — semiconductor process engineers, materials scientists, and packaging specialists.
- Center for Electromechanics — pulsed power, energy storage, electric vehicle components, and electromechanical systems research.
- McDonald Observatory — telescope operations, instrumentation, data reduction, and astronomical research support in West Texas.
- Marine Science Institute — coastal ecology, fisheries science, marine biology, and ocean observing research in Port Aransas.
The McDonald Observatory and the Marine Science Institute hire research staff seasonally and for multiyear projects, but their postings are smaller in volume and often tied to specific grants. The University’s Office of the Vice President for Research maintains a directory of research units, which is a useful way to find labs that are hiring but do not advertise on central job boards.
What Pay and Benefits Look Like
Faculty salaries at UT Austin vary widely by college and rank. According to public data compiled by AcademicJobs.com, full professors in engineering and business regularly earn above $200,000, while assistant professors in the humanities often start between $75,000 and $95,000 for nine-month appointments. Research scientists and postdoctoral fellows are typically paid on 12-month appointments, with postdoc salaries increasingly clustered between $55,000 and $70,000 depending on the funding agency's minimum.
Benefits include employer-paid health insurance options, retirement contributions through the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) or the Optional Retirement Program (ORP), tuition assistance, and access to university recreation and health facilities. UT Austin’s Human Resources site publishes current salary ranges for staff positions and details on the state’s leave policies, which include paid parental leave for eligible employees.
Austin's cost of living has risen sharply over the past decade, and housing remains the largest variable. The university's location near downtown means many staff commute from surrounding communities. Some research units offer hybrid work for software and data roles, but lab-based positions are on site.
How to Find UT Austin Jobs Without Missing Openings
The most direct route is the dedicated UT Austin jobs board on AcademicJobs.com, which aggregates faculty, research, and administrative openings posted by the university and its units. The board lets you filter by appointment type, discipline, and research area, and it includes postings that may not appear on the university’s main Workday portal until later.
For faculty candidates, department websites often list search announcements before the central board. Bookmark the pages for the Cockrell School of Engineering, College of Natural Sciences, Dell Medical School, and the School of Information if you are in those fields. For research staff, check the individual lab and center pages—TACC, ARL:UT, TIE, and the Center for Electromechanics all maintain their own employment listings and sometimes accept direct applications.
Apply early. Faculty search committees at UT Austin commonly begin screening within two to four weeks of posting, and some positions close after a fixed number of applications. Research staff openings at ARL:UT and TACC can remain open for months, but candidates who apply in the first week have a clear advantage because managers review applications on a rolling basis.
If you're exploring academic careers more broadly, the faculty jobs hub and the research jobs directory on AcademicJobs.com include comparable openings at other universities, which is useful for benchmarking pay and application requirements. For candidates already in a postdoc, the postdoctoral positions page lists funded research roles across the country, including several tied to UT Austin labs and field stations.
Most faculty searches for fall 2026 start dates will post between August and November, with on-campus interviews in January and February. Research staff hiring at the large centers runs year-round, but budgets are often freshest in September after the state fiscal year begins. The next few months are the window to get applications in before the fall wave closes.
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