Atmospheric Remote Sensing Scientist

Package Description

Joining Serco Italy’s amazing team offers:

• Competitive Salary 
• Great career opportunities in the Space industry
• Corporate Benefits Package
• International environment
• Possible hybrid work

Job Introduction

At Serco, we strive to promote and enable the diversity, development, wellbeing and safety of our people. We understand that healthier, happier employees go hand-in-hand with strong business performance, enhanced productivity and better outcomes for those we serve. We want everybody who works for Serco to have a positive experience and access to opportunities to develop in their chosen careers.

Serco in Italy is one of the top 50 World Space Manufacturing and Service companies with a long history of providing Earth Observation operations, maintenance and front-end services to the European Space Agency and other institutions. The company also offers vast experience to a huge number of IT and space markets including : central governments, defence organisations, the aerospace industry and commercial companies.

Does working in a Serco environment sound appealing to you?

We would love to hear from you and your interest in the new opportunity of Atmospheric Remote Sensing Scientist!

Main Responsibilities

We are seeking two bright, post-doc-like scientists with Atmospheric Composition experience to join the Quality Control Ecosystem team supporting the activities in the frame of the Quality Assurance for Earth Observation (QA4EO) ESA project and other national and international Earth Observation Quality Control and R&D projects.

The post-holders will develop new tools and methods for the quality assessment of satellite-based atmospheric products, maintain the existing ones, and operate them on real data. The post-holders will, in fact, also perform calibration/validation activities on satellite-based atmospheric products by exploiting ground- and satellite-based concurrent products. 
In addition, two specialised skills are required, whose relative weight may vary in the two positions sought: 

• A practical, effective experience in the development of ad-hoc solid and well-structured tools aiming to automate data analysis and QC activities.
• A good exposure towards atmospheric measurements' instrumentation functioning, operations and troubleshooting

The Scientist will perform the following activities under the direction and guidance of the Work Package leader and Area Manager:

• Develop new tools and maintain the already existing ones for the handling of current and past atmospheric satellite mission data;
• Develop tools and methods for the quality assessment of satellite products against collocated ground- and satellite-based products of similar type;
• Develop new tools to support the filtering of model-based output in view of implementing quality filtering automation, integrating already existing algorithms and routines;
• Perform data Quality Control and Cal/Val activities for national and international space agencies in the atmospheric chemistry and physics domain;
• Support data reprocessing of atmospheric missions from national and international space agencies in the atmospheric chemistry and physics domain;  
• Contribute to the writing of scientific papers and technical reports and preparation of scientific presentations at international conferences/workshops;
• Attendance at project progress meetings or workshops/conferences.

Successful Candidate

SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES:

• Good experience in handling and analysing EO data;
• Good scientific programming skills (e.g. Python, IDL, R, Fortran);
• Good oral and written communication;
• Experience in scientific publication and reporting (including oral presentations) of results;
• Good working proficiency in English.

In addition, the candidate shall have the following:

• Attitude to follow guidelines and to require minimum supervision, proactively requesting help when needed
• Ability to plan and report activities and to work to deadlines.
• Availability to travel to attend meetings.  

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE: 

• Applicants should have high self-motivation, the capability to work effectively in a team and autonomously, and excellent organizational skills. A solid, proactive attitude is required in identifying problems and proposing solutions. 

Mandatory knowledge and experience requisites are:

• University degree, or equivalent, in physics, chemistry, engineering or mathematics.
• Sound knowledge of retrieval algorithms and their implementation
• Sound knowledge of methods for quality control and calibration/validation of satellite-based atmospheric products
• Sound knowledge of atmospheric dynamics and physics
• Capability to develop tools for the handling and analysis of large sets of data
• Sound knowledge of instrumentation functioning and maintenance for monitoring atmospheric parameters

Additional assets: 

• Experience with past or current Atmospheric Earth Observation Satellite mission data;
• Experience in the field of atmospheric physics and remote sensing (list of publications);
• Experience in Calibration/Validation projects or activities.
• Experience in atmospheric dynamics and chemistry modelling

About the Company

Why should you join Serco ?

At Serco not only is the nature of the work we do important, everyone has an important role to play.

Meaningful and vital work - You’ll contribute to methodologically intercepting challenges whilst achievements will also be recognised and celebrated.

A world of opportunity - You’ll be wholeheartedly supported with development and career progression

Great people - You’ll become an integral member of a well-defined and supportive team who believe passionately in the value of our work.

What we offer

• Chance to contribute to innovation in the public services sector
• A company passionate about diversity and inclusion
• Permanent employment with comprehensive Serco Benefits package.

About Serco

At Serco, not only is the nature of the work we do important, everyone has an important role to play when managing complex public services.  

We are a team of 60,000 people responsible for delivering essential public services around the world, we are innovators, committed to redesigning and improving public services for the benefit of everyone.

By joining Serco you will have unlimited access to our Global Employee Networks – SercoInspire (Gender), SercoEmbrace (Multicultural), SercoUnlimited (Disability) and In@Serco (LGBT & Networks). Serco Employee Networks, led by colleagues who are passionate about diversity, inclusion and belonging. 

Important:

Any offer of employment is contingent upon you providing documents to verify your identity and employment eligibility, as required by law.

Applicants are reminded that they will be requested to produce such documentation during the recruitment process.

Please contact a member of the recruitment team if you require further details of acceptable types of documentation required for verification of identity and work authorization. 

Data Protection:

For more information on how the personal data in your application is process, please see the link Data Protection policy here.