Ground Stations Operations Engineer

Package Description

What we offer if you join our amazing team:

• Competitive Salary 

• Corporate Benefits Package 

• Support provided to EU Nationals requiring relocation – Information available upon request

• Company events

Job Introduction

We have an exciting (and challenging) opening for a Ground Stations Operations Engineer in Darmstadt. 

Dynamic, Energetic, Entrepreneurial, Highly Motivated, Resilient … If this describes you then we would love to hear from you :) Come and join talented diverse Serco team at the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) based in Darmstadt, Germany. 

Discover the offer below and click on ‘Apply’ if you know that your skillset and talents are a suitable match for this opportunity.

• Serco – The employer of choice for a career within the Space Sector.

Serco are a trusted provider of services to National Space Agencies and the European Space Agency (ESA), we have over 40 years’ experience supporting the space sector and providing services for all stages of our customer’s space missions.

• Join our community of space specialists across Europe

We are proud to support the European institutional Space landscape: Serco boasts an extensive network of Space professionals located at our offices in Darmstadt, Noordwijk, Frascati, Paris and Madrid, all within close proximity of our two largest space sector customers, European Space Agency/European Space Operations Centre (ESA/ESOC) and European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

• Supporting Women in Aerospace

Diversity and Inclusion is extremely important to us. Supporting women's opportunities, development and visibility in the space sector is key and that is why we are proud members and supporters of Women in Aerospace Europe, a dynamic and global network supporting women's careers in Aerospace.

Women in Aerospace Europe (WIA-E) – Supporting women in STEM (wia-europe.org)    

Main Responsibilities

As Ground Stations Operations Engineer you will concentrate your activities on the following:

• Routine operations for Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) missions including:
  • Conduct and coordinate routine and special operations,
  • Monitor the performance and quality of the ground stations, report and investigate anomalies, participate in the correction of anomalies and propose evolutions,
  • Create and maintain schedules,
  • Contribute to the preparation and maintenance of documentation to perform routine, non-routine and contingency operations activities, including operational procedures, working practices and user guides, in accordance with EUMETSAT document management and configuration control processes,
  • Contribute to the maintenance of statistics databases and monitoring systems,
  • Provide statistics and inputs for periodic OPS reporting as defined in operations documentations,
  • Provide periodic inputs to mission Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at the frequency requested by EUMETSAT TO,
  • Contribute the medium and long-term operations planning
  • On-call support, as required
  • Prepare and provide training, through written materials, practical demonstrations and presentations, to other parties (including controllers, analysts and engineers).
  • Liaise and coordinate as required with other Contractors and other teams working at EUMETSAT to ensure the continuity of mission operations and optimisation of the ground segment.
  • Liaise and coordinate as requested with external engineering partners for anomaly investigation and reporting of issues that might affect those partners.
• Operational evolutions:
  • Contribute to the definition of evolutions including requirements specifications and further development,
  • Evaluate the technical requirements, and assess their compliance with the relevant ground segment requirements,
  • Contribute to the operational validation of upgrades, and to the compilation of the relevant operational validation reports,
  • Contribute to the operational validation activities of ground stations evolutions, and to the compilation of the relevant validation reports,
  • In coordination with the relevant division from the Technical and Scientific Support (TSS) department, define and implement procedures and tools for the monitoring of the ground stations
  • Participate in the coordination meetings for Engineering Change Proposals (ECPs) and projects as requested
  • Participate in technical evolutions and implementations meetings for operational systems as requested.
• Operations preparations:
  • Contribute to reviews, particularly identifying system deficiencies, raising operational risks and suggest their potential resolution,
  • Contribute to workshops with providing ground stations expertise,
  • Contribute to the preparation and tracking of the status for configuration items validation and Operational Scenario Validation (OSV),
  • Contribute to the definition of operations concepts, operations preparations and commissioning activities,
  • Contribute to the integration, verification and validation test campaigns within the relevant ground segments,
  • Contribute to the definition of transition plans,
  • Contribute to the generation of operational documentation
  • Support to Launch and LEOP, as required, including shift support.

Successful Candidate

Do you think you are the person we are looking for? See below what experience or knowledge you should bring:

Required:

• A university degree (or equivalent) in an engineering or scientific discipline relevant to the job profile (e.g. telecommunications, electronics, radio frequency or equivalent.) or proven experience in ground stations (TT&C and Mission Data Acquisition) in a real-time 24/7 spacecraft operations environment, ideally in an Earth Observation environment.
• At least two years’ experience in the operations of complex ground stations systems (TT&C and Mission Data Acquisition) in support of multiple Geostationary (GEO) and/or Low Earth Orbit (LEO) spacecraft, and experience of verification and validation of such systems.
• Very good strengths in analysis, synthesis and presentation skills.
• Very good interpersonal, communication and reporting skills and an ability to apply these to the interactions within a team and between teams in a multi-disciplinary context.
• Ability to learn and develop the needed skills and knowledge to contribute to the operations of the service, including the ability to rapidly absorb, and make use of, information presented in written and oral communications in a dynamic context.
• A systematic approach to work, be able to plan their work and to cope with tight schedules and multiple tasks.
• Ability to work effectively under pressure and to manage complex tasks with minimum supervision.
• Capability to write accurate, concise, focused and consistent technical documentation and reports.
• The working language is English and therefore the candidate must be able to work effectively in this language.

Desirable:

Knowledge or experience in the following:

• Demonstrated experience in managing service teams
• Major upgrades or evolutions of operational ground stations
• Definition and implementation of verification and validation activities of ground stations,
• Definition, verification and validation of interfaces between ground stations and ground segments,
• Diagnosis and correction of first-line ground stations’ hardware and software failures,
• Preparation of requirements, design, interfaces and testing documentation,
• Document management and configuration control processes,
• Definition of user interfaces for operations (HMI, reports, etc.),
• Relevant technical standards (e.g. ECSS, CCSDS),
• Baseband operation and configuration,
• Dataminer, Monitoring and control tool.

Space Link Extension (SLE) operation and/or configuration.

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. We are a company passionate about diversity and inclusion. 

About Serco

Serco provides the User Helpdesk and Data Centre Operations Service of the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), which plays a key role in enhancing the use of EUMETSAT data, products and data services.

The main objective of the service is to ensure effective and user-driven service to support the provision of data, both real-time and offline, as well as to provide comprehensive technical information to support all forms of user enquiries relating both to current operational services and to future satellite programmes of EUMETSAT.

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.