VN 25/23 Ground Stations Systems Engineer

Within the Ground Stations Competence Area, the successful candidate will provide engineering support to the development and evolution of EUMETSAT’s multi-mission ground stations.

Ground stations are critical assets to the operations of EUMETSAT’s Low-Earth-Orbiting (LEO) and Geostationary (GEO) Earth Observation missions. The successful candidate will take on ground stations system engineering responsibilities for the development and upgrade of our ground stations in line with the organisation’s multi-mission approach.

Close collaboration with our international ground stations operations and engineering teams will offer the selected candidate enriching experience of contributing to the full lifecycle of the systems under her/his responsibility.

Duties

The successful candidate will be in charge of managing engineering activities to develop and evolve ground segment systems in the area of ground stations:

• Definition of concepts, analyses and trade-offs;
• Definition, engineering, and management of technical requirements in accordance to identified user’s needs;
• Support and follow-up on design and development;
• Supervision and support for integration, validation and verification activities;
• Support anomaly review boards, configuration, and quality management.

The successful candidate will cover also the following:

• Manage industrial development and/or maintenance contracts;
• Support the definition and implementation of a long-term strategy for cost effective maintenance of ground stations;
• Acquire, maintain and foster knowledge on CCSDS and ECSS standards and other ground stations engineering related topics;

Certain activities will require travelling within Europe and/or going on business trips to remote sites where ground station are located such as Svalbard (Norway), Fucino (Italy) and Turkey. Exceptionally, these missions could have durations of more than 2 weeks.

LOCATION

QUALIFICATIONS

University degree (or equivalent) in Telecommunication Engineering, or any other relevant discipline.

LANGUAGES

Candidates must be able to work effectively in English and have some knowledge of French.

DEADLINE

5 May 2025

Skills and Experience

• Background in system engineering in electronics or telecommunication related to ground stations;
• Proven experience in ground stations systems engineering, testing, and/or long-term maintenance of complex ground systems for space missions;
• Strong motivation to develop towards full professionalism in an international environment in the area of Ground Stations System Engineering;
• Readiness to learn / expand the own knowledge combined with excellent interpersonal skills and the proven ability to work in a team;
• For this role some of the following knowledge would be advantageous: Space to Ground and Ground to Space communications systems including link budgets; satellite communications coding and modulation schemes; radiometric measurements for satellite navigation.

Employment Conditions

The initial contract will be of 4 years’ duration, with subsequent 5 year contracts being awarded thereafter, subject to individual performance and organisation requirements. There is no limit to the amount of follow-up contracts a staff member can receive up to the EUMETSAT retirement age of 63 and there are certainly opportunities to establish a long career perspective at EUMETSAT.
This post is graded A2/A4 on the EUMETSAT salary scales. The minimum basic salary for this post is EURO 7,340 per month (net of internal tax but excluding pension contribution and insurances) which may be negotiable on the basis of skills and experience. The salary scale provides for increments on the anniversary of taking up employment, and scales are reviewed by the EUMETSAT Council with effect from 1 January each year. In addition to basic salary, EUMETSAT offers attractive benefits. Further information, including salary details, is available on the EUMETSAT web site.

EUMETSAT is committed to providing an equal opportunities work environment for men and women.
Please note that only nationals of EUMETSAT Member States may apply. The EUMETSAT Convention requires that Staff shall be recruited on the basis of their qualifications, account being taken of the international character of EUMETSAT.

About EUMETSAT

EUMETSAT is Europe’s meteorological satellite agency. Its role is to establish and operate meteorological satellites to monitor the weather and climate from space - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This information is supplied to the National Meteorological Services of the organisation's Member States in Europe, as well as other users worldwide.

EUMETSAT also operates several Copernicus missions on behalf of the European Union and provide data services to the Copernicus marine and atmospheric services and their users.

As an intergovernmental European Organisation, EUMETSAT has 30 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.)