Description

STA Product Assurance and Safety (PA&S)* Manager in the Product Assurance and Safety Department, Directorate of Technology, Engineering and Quality.

Duties

The Sample Transfer Arm (STA) is the ESA contribution to the NASA/JPL-led Mars sample return mission.

If selected for the position, you will be assigned as integrated support to the Product Assurance and Safety Team within the Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration Programmes  (HRE). You will report functionally to the STA Team Leader (HRE-MS) and to the HRE Product Assurance and Safety Team Leader for the specific responsibilities and duties outlined below.

For the maintenance of professional standards, the implementation of the general ESA Product Assurance and Safety (PA&S) policy, and contributions to corporate tasks (including reviews, standardisation, alerts and lessons learned), you will report to the Head of the Product Assurance and Safety Department through the Product Assurance and Safety Team Leader.

Your responsibilities and duties will include: 

•    establishing and maintaining the STA project PA&S requirements baseline in compliance with the ESA PA&S policy; 

•    ensuring the implementation of the PA&S requirements by contractors and other supplying parties, supporting milestone reviews and participating in the process of verifying compliance with requirements;

•    monitoring the implementation of approved contractor plans and specifications, ensuring that adequate resources are deployed for the execution of the project PA&S programme;

•    planning, coordinating and monitoring the assigned PA&S workforce providing support to the project;

•    participating in the boards for the disposition of deviations from the requirements baseline and of changes to the agreed design;

•    representing ESA in the boards established (with industry and international partners) for the disposition of non-conformances and anomalies, and the definition and monitoring of relevant corrective and preventive actions (NRB), for failure investigations, and for project technical reviews (e.g. MRR, TRR, PTR and TRB);

•    ensuring the implementation of the reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS) and software assurance programmes, including support in designing trade-off decisions and the verification of requirements;

•    monitoring the selection, procurement and use of electrical, electronic and electromechanical (EEE) components, and materials, processes and mechanical (MPM) parts;

•    monitoring and coordinating the planetary protection activities during all project phases;

•    ensuring the monitoring of the manufacturing, assembly, integration and test activities by mandatory and key inspection points, test witnessing, quality assurance checks, etc.;

•    conducting the acceptance reviews for all contractual deliverable items;

•    reviewing the safety data packages from contractors and other supplying parties, ensuring that they are made available on time to the Safety Authority, and supporting safety reviews and other key events with the Safety Authority;

•    supervising PA&S activities during the launch campaign;

•    performing any other PA&S tasks necessary to ensure a safe and successful mission.

In carrying out these tasks, you will receive support from experts from the project team and from the ESA Directorate of Technology, Engineering and Quality.
 

Technical competencies

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward Thinking 

Education

A master’s degree in engineering or technical sciences is required for this post.

Additional requirements

You should have a background in space systems.
Experience in the area of project development would be an asset .

* PA&S covers safety, reliability, availability, maintainability, product and quality assurance, components, materials and processes, cleanliness and contamination and software product assurance.