Vacancy in the Directorate of Directorate of Internal Services
ESA is an equal opportunity employer, committed to achieving diversity within the workforce and creating an inclusive working environment. For this purpose, we welcome applications from all qualified candidates irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, beliefs, age, disability or other characteristics. Applications from women are encouraged.
This post is part of ESA’s Junior Professional Programme. We are looking for enthusiastic candidates with a Master's degree and 2-3 years’ experience to join ESA for an initial three-year period. During this time, you will actively work and learn on the job and will benefit from interesting development opportunities in order to prepare for a permanent position at ESA at the end of your Junior Professional assignment.
The selection process for the first cohort of Junior Professionals will take place during Spring 2022, successful candidates are expected to start work during the period June-October 2022.
This post is for an initial limited duration of three years and is classified A1 on the Coordinated Organisations’ salary scale.
Location
ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands or other site, as required.
You may be required to relocate temporarily to other ESA establishments or another location for development assignments.
Description
As part of the ongoing digital transformation at ESA, we are looking for an individual passionate about technologies who will be responsible for establishing our AI & Emerging Technology platform.
The intention of such a platform is to accelerate the use of AI/ML as well as other emerging technologies for digitalisation (Internet of Things, quantum computing, augmented reality). We pursue a platform approach in order to accomplish the ESA-wide objective of following a business-led strategy for IT. Therefore, as part of the platform, we will evaluate customer requirements and industry best practices to develop robust policies, processes and governance to ensure secure and compliant adoption of such technologies.
Based on the identified requirements and use-cases, we expect to provide managed environments with automated guardrails for experimentation, prototyping, development and operations of AI/ML solutions.
For further emerging technologies, we will pursue evaluations of the relevance, feasibility and technology risks. For promising and feasible technologies we want to promote the adoption of, we expect to provide environments for experimentation and prototyping as well as developing demonstrators to accelerate adoption.
We will place a focus on ensuring that security, data protection and ethical guardrails are implemented in order to minimise risk while maximising speed of delivery.
Activities on Digital Transformation will be coordinated with the ESA Chief Digital Officer.
Duties
• Identify customers and stakeholders for the AI & Emerging Technology Platform and elicit their requirements, constraints and expectations.
• Act as a product owner for the AI/ML end-to-end platform including capabilities like data management, data preparation, interactive exploration, managed model training, model management, model monitoring, batch inference, model serving etc.
• Understand, review and, if necessary, support in the definition of policies to govern the consumption of AI/ML and Emerging Technologies at ESA.
• Work with stakeholders to define the overall strategy and direction for the AI & Emerging Technology platforms.
• Develop and operate the lifecycle of emerging technologies including trendscouting, technology assessment, incubation and scaling.
• Define training needs and ensure access to training resources for ESA to accelerate consumption of AI & Emerging Technologies.
Development programme
In addition to your daily work, you will take part in an extensive learning and development programme. From day one, you will learn on the job and benefit from tailored development opportunities, including active participation to real mission operations, exposure to other different business areas of ESA and participation in technical and key skills training courses.
On top of this, you will have additional training to build up specific skills and knowledge as well as all the support you need to pursue your career in ESA.
For the specific needs of the role, you will be expected to engage in continuous learning on evolutions & state of the art in the domains of AI/ML. During the three years of the programme, this will include topics such as MLOps, reinforcement learning, deep learning, AI ethics, data centric AI, transformers, federated learning etc. While the key mode of learning will be experiential, we expect to implement a development plan including formal training (in classroom settings) as well as informal learning (via participation in conferences and exchanges with universities).
In addition, part of the development will involve being embedded in projects and initiatives within our internal customer organisations (e.g. data science teams in other directorates) to support them in adoption of the AI & Emerging Technology platform as well as gaining a deeper understanding of their business context and their needs.
Last but not least, in the domain of emerging technologies, you will be expected to “learn so you can teach” and take up the role of regularly being the first one within the IT organisation to dive deep into a new technology in order to understand its potential, assess its relevance and evaluate the feasibility of introducing it as a technical capability at ESA.
Technical competencies
Behavioural competencies
Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward Thinking
Education
A Master's-level degree for this post is required.
Additional requirements
You should have between two and three years of professional experience, preferably in a relevant technical domain, after completion of your Master’s degree.
Participation in one of ESA ‘s entry-level programmes, i.e. Young Graduate Trainee, National Trainee, or Research Fellow Programmes, will be recognised as eligible experience.
You should also have experience and strong interest in the following technical competencies:
• Understand and interest in the domains of compliance and governance of technologies including a focus on security, privacy and ethical considerations.
• Familiarity with of modern development methods and tools used including Agile, site reliability engineering etc.
• Experience in trendscouting and evaluating technologies is highly valued.
Specificities
The ESA Junior Professional Programme has a forward-looking perspective. Subject to confirmed good performance, both technically and behaviourally, it is the intention to offer you a permanent contract at the end of the three years. As such, this initiative represents a significant investment by ESA in your personal and professional development. The programme is designed to provide you with the required knowledge and skills in order to ensure an optimal match, and to allow you to fulfil your role as effectively as possible. You can expect to be given many opportunities to develop your professional experience and competencies, to learn from ESA experts and to contribute to ESA activities.
Recruitment will take place at the A1 grade. You can expect to be upgraded to A2 at the end of the fourth year, if you are offered a permanent position at the end of your Junior Professional assignment.
Other information
For behavioural competencies expected from ESA staff in general, please refer to the ESA Competency Framework.
The working languages of the Agency are English and French. A good knowledge of one of these is required. Knowledge of another Member State language would be an asset.
The Agency may require applicants to undergo selection tests.
At the Agency we value diversity and we welcome people with disabilities. Whenever possible, we seek to accommodate individuals with disabilities by providing the necessary support within the workplace. The Human Resources Department can also provide assistance during the recruitment process. If you would like to discuss this further please contact us email contact.human.resources@esa.int.
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Please note that applications are only considered from nationals of one of the following States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Canada, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia.
According to the ESA Convention, the recruitment of staff must take into account an adequate distribution of posts among nationals of the ESA Member States*. When short-listing for an interview, priority will first be given to external candidates from under-represented or balanced Member States*. (https://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/careers/NationalityTargets.pdf)
In accordance with the European Space Agency’s security procedures and as part of the selection process, successful candidates will be required to undergo basic screening before appointment.
*Member States, Associate Members or Cooperating States.