Science Operations System Engineer
**Job Requisition ID**:19520
**Date Posted**:8 May 2025
**Closing Date**:29 May 2025 23:59 CET/CEST
**Publication**:Internal & External
**Type of Contract**:Permanent
**Directorate**:Science
**Workplace**:Villanueva de la Cañada, ES
**Grade Band**:A2 - A4
**Location**
ESAC, Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
**Description**
The European Space Agency maintains a world-leading Science Programme with missions in heliophysics, planetary science, astrophysics and fundamental physics. Its mission is to 'Empower Europe to lead space science'.
The Science Operations Department within ESA's Directorate of Science hosts the scientists and engineers that oversee space missions from study to end of operations. It develops the science operations systems for the missions and operates the missions in space, as well as archiving and curating their data during operations and beyond. Its main objective is to maximise the scientific output of the missions for the benefit of humankind.
As Science Operations System Engineer, you will support the design, implementation and testing of the science ground segment system, particularly the science operation centres of our science missions. You will initially be assigned to the LISA mission and report to the LISA Science Operations Development Manager in the Science Operations Development Division.
LISA will be the first space-based observatory dedicated to studying gravitational waves: ripples in the fabric of space-time emitted during the most powerful events in the Universe, such as pairs of black holes coming together and merging. LISA will be the first mission to probe the entire history of the Universe using these waves. It is targeted for launch in the mid-2030s.**Duties**
You will be responsible for the science operations system engineering activities of the LISA mission for the remainder of the development and operations phases in the Science Operation Centre (SOC), working on the ESA components of the Science Ground Segment (SGS). The SOC, based at ESAC (Madrid, Spain), is responsible for the science planning, data processing and archiving activities of ESA’s contribution to the missions’ science operations. The Mission Operations Centre (MOC), based at ESOC (Darmstadt, Germany), is responsible for all spacecraft operations.
You will work in close collaboration with the LISA Project Scientist, the LISA Project Team at ESTEC in the Netherlands, the Mission Operations Centre at ESOC in Germany and the LISA consortium delivering components of the Science Ground Segment.
Your tasks and responsibilities will include the following:
- setting up and maintaining the system engineering processes of the LISA Science Operations Centre (SOC) and supporting the wider Science Ground Segment (SGS) during the development and operations phases. This includes requirements management, interface definition and supervision of the SOC architectural design;
- leading the LISA SOC system design and development plan, ensuring that processes, tools and strategies exist to support requirements capture, validation, verification and long-term maintenance;
- defining, formalising and maintaining all required LISA SOC interfaces, interacting with representatives of the wider SGS elements, as well as with the Mission Operations Centre and international partners;
- leading the overall LISA science operations integration and coordinating the SGS test campaigns, monitoring partner contributions and performing end-to-end validation;
- contributing to the definition of the operations plan and associated operational procedures within the SOC and across the SGS;
- developing and implementing SOC software, including core services, data pipelines and data transfer tools, while ensuring compatibility with mission requirements;
- identifying and evaluating potential multi-mission engineering activities, tools and systems within the Department for reuse in the LISA SOC;
- overseeing and managing SOC infrastructure, including the procurement of hardware, software and computational resources;
It is anticipated that your position will evolve to also support multi-mission solutions for science ground-segments and potentially other science missions in development in the Division.**Technical competencies**
Experience in software systems engineering, from requirements engineering to design and development, and then verification and validation, preferably for science operationsExperience in development, operations and maintenance of ground infrastructure and/or software systems, preferably for science operationsExperience in space missions’ operationsExperience in dealing with industrial contracts, particularly those related to R&D;**Behavioural competencies**
Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward ThinkingFor more information, please refer to ESA Core Behavioural Competencies guidebook**Education**-
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