PDGS Operations Engineer

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.

Dedicated to the European Space Agency’s Earth-observing activities, ESA-ESRIN is the European centre of excellence for exploitation of Earth observation missions. The mission and payload operations of ESA's Earth observation satellites are managed here, and ESRIN is the primary source for the acquisition, distribution, and exploitation of data from these and other non-ESA satellites.

Serco Italy has a long history of providing Earth Observation operations, maintenance and front-end services to ESA. To provide continual service improvement, Serco has recently introduced a special focus on evolution and innovation, with the aim of supporting ESA in further evolving the services and products.

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 PDGS Operations Engineer in Frascati (Rome) !

Does this vacancy not suit your profile? Not to worry, you can send your updated CV to careers.italy@serco.com – a member of our Recruitment Team will come back to you shortly after.

Role Responsibility

We are looking for an experienced PDGS engineer to come and join our team to improve the operational PDGS performance, to identify evolution paths and troubleshoot and resolve ongoing problems.  In a few words somebody conversant with new technologies and strong engineering practices, looking to express their experience and knowledge of PDGS and demonstrate their capability to manage change and introduce improvements.

Main tasks include:

• Supporting the PDGS Manager within depth technical knowledge/expertise on all aspects of the PDGS (this includes both routine operations and relationship with third parties and mission bodies).
• End-to-end monitoring of the PDGS performance. To this purpose, the successful candidate  shall have an overall and in-depth view of PDGS architecture and service implementation, and shall have a detailed understanding of interactions at both system level (i.e. through technical ICDs) and service level (i.e. through contractual SLAs and service interaction agreements).
• Monitoring and controlling incidents (trends, risks, etc.) and ensuring incident resolution across the PDGS according to the service levels and quality standards agreed with the different operations teams/services.
• When necessary, ensuring adequate anomaly root cause analysis and problem resolution.
• Supporting the PDGS Manager with the generation of weekly/monthly management reporting (taking inputs from the various services, and systems).
• Supporting the PDGS Manager with the overall coordination of the various phase-in (and preparation) activities conducted by the various operations teams/services during the initial 3 months after launch, in parallel to satellite and PDGS commissioning phase. This close follow up and coordination is required for all the key operational services for both missions.
• Supporting the PDGS Manager with the management of the industrial services operating PDGS during routine phase.
• End-to-end responsibility for operational coordination among common services, mission-specific services and third-party actors (i.e. external to the division).
• Overall responsibility for configuration and documentation management within the PDGS.
• Ensuring, in collaboration with the various operations teams/services, the optimization of PDGS resources, identifying potential bottlenecks and propose resource upgrade when necessary.
• Contributing to the optimization of end-to-end processes and improvement of service efficiency.
• Contributing to the improvement of the PDGS and the adaptation to product and usage evolution (e.g., by proposing architecture or application changes).
• Managing the evolution activities within the PDGS during phase E2 according to the evolution plan approved by the PDGS Manager.
• Supporting the PDGS Manager on overall change management within the PDGS: technical assessment, coordination, implementation.
• In close collaboration with the PDGS validation service and the operational teams/services, preparing, planning and executing the TTO for major PDGS and processor upgrades, ensuring service continuity (or minimal disruption).
• Supporting Disaster Charter and ECO operations.
• Monitoring the Charter service infrastructure in order to ensure secure and smooth operation (time and privacy are critical in the Charter), highlight bottlenecks or single point of failure and propose evolution.

In return, we offer a friendly, supportive and professional environment that respects your work/life balance and ultimately contributes to the delivery of public services in Italy and around the world.

Successful Candidate

The following skills and experience are mandatory:

• University degree or equivalent qualification in a technical discipline, preferably in Earth Observation or Computer Science.
• At least 5 years of working experience in the area of PDGS operations of ESA missions or representative/similar environment.
• Experience on Payload Data Ground segment architecture and/or operations.
• Capacity to acquire in depth technical understanding and knowledge of PDGS systems (overall architecture, data flows, interfaces, dependencies) in a limited time.
• Experience with configuration management, change control and release management.
• Experience/Knowledge in the design, implementation, and migration of PDGS architecture based on Kubernetes (K8s).
• Experience/knowledge of micro-services systems, cloud native applications using container and cloud orchestration technologies.
• Knowledge of machine learning, optimization problems and artificial intelligence techniques for advanced PDGS automation.
• Pro-activeness, good communication skills, team player.
• Result-oriented.
• Capacity to work autonomously.
• Capacity to generate good documentation.
• Strong project management skills
• Ability to complete complex tasks with minimal guidance and to work and cooperate with others.
• Experience/knowledge on service/operations best practices (ITIL), management and processes.
• Ability to coordinate end to end activities and teams.
• Ability to take ownership and manage end to end problems.
• Fluent in English, both written and spoken.

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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:

When creating a profile on the Serco Career Centre you agreed to the Data Protection policy, a copy is available upon request.You may submit a written request revoking your consent to this agreement at any time.

Package Description

Joining Serco Italy’s amazing team offers:

• Competitive Salary 
• Great career opportunities in the Space industry
• Competitive Salary
• Corporate Benefits Package
• Support provided to EU Nationals requiring relocation – Information available upon request
• Company events
• International environment

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. 

Apply

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Serco is a Disability Confident Employer committed to employing and retaining people with disabilities. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job will be given the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities at an interview.

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