Dear Dr. Baumgartner,
I'm writing about the IT Project Manager position at poltextLAB within the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences. Over the past six years, I've been managing IT projects in academic research settings, and I believe my experience aligns well with what you're looking for.
In my current role as IT Project Coordinator at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Centre for Social Sciences, I manage several research IT projects simultaneously, some with budgets reaching €200,000. Day to day, this means coordinating development teams, working with international partners, and making sure we deliver technical solutions that actually meet researchers' needs. One thing I've learned is that academic research projects have their own rhythm and challenges—you can't just apply standard corporate IT approaches and expect them to work.
I'm genuinely excited about this position because of poltextLAB's focus on LLM models, generative AI, and database development. While building custom data processing pipelines for political science researchers, I've picked up Python, R, and SQL along the way. I'm not an expert programmer, but I understand enough to coordinate programming tasks effectively and communicate with both developers and researchers. I've also introduced agile practices that cut our delivery times by about 25%, and I think similar approaches could work well for the interdisciplinary projects you're running.
I have an MSc in Information Technology Project Management from BME and a BSc in Computer Science from ELTE, plus PMP, Certified Scrum Master, and PRINCE2 Foundation certifications. More importantly, though, I've spent years actually doing this work—managing research priorities, facilitating conversations between technical and research staff, and figuring out how to deliver results in the sometimes unpredictable world of academic research.
The chance to work on both domestic and international grant projects appeals to me, as does representing poltextLAB at conferences and workshops. My English is fluent (C1, TOEFL iBT 102), and I've coordinated multi-country projects before. I've also mentored junior coordinators and run training sessions for research staff—something I found surprisingly rewarding.
I'm flexible on hours (either 20 or 40 per week works for me) and could start right away. I'd be happy to talk more about how I might contribute to what you're building at poltextLAB.
Thank you for considering my application.
Sincerely, Márton László Kovács
