Senior Earth Observation Scientist

Job Introduction

Serco is a specialist at delivering vital services on behalf of European, National and Local Governments.

Serco Europe employ’s a large workforce in Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy and the UK.

Our European operations have ca. 2,000 employees delivering critical services to public institutions throughout Europe. 

Serco’s space heritage over the last 40 years has placed us in the Space News Top 50 Space Industry Manufacturing and Services Companies - We work alongside EUMETSAT and the European Space Agency, where we are the largest on-site service provider with ca. 300 staff.

What connects the ever growing Serco workforce is a passion for delivering great service – To keep ahead we have to constantly evolve and enhance the way we deliver our services and everyone in Serco has a role to play here.

Serco provide the right environment to encourage ideas and a comprehensive Best Practice support network that enables them to put their ideas into action.

If you share our values then join with over 60,000 colleagues globally who are equally as passionate about delivering great service as you.

Within the ESA Sensors Performance, Products and Algorithms (SPPA) Section the post-holder will be included in the Instrument Data quality Evaluation and Analysis Service (IDEAS+) and potentially also in additional contractual frameworks.

The post-holder will be supporting the ESA Data Quality Managers for the Quality Assessment (QA) and Calibration/Validation (Cal/Val) activities with focus on Atmospheric Chemistry for ESA and Third-Party Missions (TPMs), such as GHGSat-D, GOSAT-2 and TanSAT. Other tasks will be to interface with ESA-LTDP (Long Term Data Preservation) project and support ESA Data Quality Managers for scientific Workshops organization.

Role Responsibility

The main activities will mainly consist:  

A) Perform QA and Cal/Val activities for ESA and Third Party Missions on the Atmospheric Chemistry domain:

• Verifying the completeness and correctness of the products format and content;

• Propose and define a methodology for assessing the quality and fitness for purpose for the mission;

• Evaluate the level of maturity of the mission products in terms of quality of the provided geo-physical products and associated documentation and tools;

• Perform on request quality assessment of sample mission data by comparison to similar satellite data, co-located in-situ and fiducial reference measurements (FRM);

• Prepare QA reports summarizing the results of the QA and Cal/Val activities and assessing the "fitness for purpose" of the relevant mission's products.

B) Support ESA workshops organization, chairing and follow-up activities:

• Assist and support the data quality manager and other relevant ESA staff in preparing workshops;

• Prepare draft of Workshop announcement including objectives, themes, and sessions;

• Assist review of abstracts and propose keynote contribution around the relevant scientific themes;

• Contribute to chairing and logistic activities for the workshops;

• Prepare draft report summarizing the major scientific outcomes from the workshop.

C) Coordinate and Support QA, Workshops organization and Multi-mission studies activities with scientific partners:

• Drive and coordinate the external support for assessing the fitness for purpose of the relevant mission in collaboration with EDAP and IDEAS+ scientific partners;

• Review the contribution from the scientific partners and steer the improvements in the QA and Cal/Val methodologies;

• Formulate recommendations to ESA on mission improvements in terms of product content, quality and related documentation;

• Support the generation of recommendations to ESA on possible new activities on present or different Third Party Mission.

D) Support ESA-GQ in interaction with LTDP:

• Support ESA and the LTDP Working Group in the review of LTDP guidelines and process documentation, specifically providing relevant inputs on SPPA aspects;

• Participate in and contribute to LTDP meetings, including Working Group meetings and other relevant conferences (e.g. PV), including preparation and presentation of relevant service SPPA results or inputs to ESA presentations.

E) Other general:

• Support ESA communication activities, including Web stories and ESA publications;
• Contribution to the preparation of presentations and reports for international conferences and workshops;
• When needed, support interfacing with:

- External entities (e.g., CEOS) and other ESA interfaces (PDGS)

- Other entities inside IDEAS+ and EDAP contracts

- General end users requests via ESA Earth Observation Help Desk.           

Successful Candidate

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

Mandatory knowledge requisites are:

• Science oriented background with focus on Earth Observation and Atmospheric Chemistry;

• Experience in QA and Cal/Val activities in support to Earth Observation missions;

• Experience on scientific activities and projects coordination.

A robust expertise in at least one of the following topics is required:

• Satellite Data handling and exploitation for Earth Observation;

• Satellite instrument calibration and products geo-physical validation.                                                                   

Mandatory skill requisites are:

• Strong teaming attitude

• Very good interfacing capabilities towards external international interfaces: customer, scientific and technical. 

• Proactive approach to problem identification and resolution.

• Ability to plan and report on proposed problem solutions and to work to deadline.

• Candidates should be fluent in English and have good writing and communication skills.

• Availability to travel to attend meetings.

• Programming skills: ability to efficiently build data manipulation and analysis utilities for personal usage. Examples are: usage of Python, IDL, Matlab or other scripting tools.

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If candidates with equally relevant experience are identified, preference will be given to candidates within "Categorie Protette (Law 68/99)" or registered in “lista di mobilità” (only applicable in case of Italian candidates).

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. 

For positions located within the Darmstadt Support Office please note that only applicants with no family affiliation within the Company will be considered.

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

Full details on application

The position is a permanent contract.

About the Company

Serco SpA part of the Serco group, A FTSE250, Multi-national Service Provider with over 50,000 employees worldwide.

Serco European Agencies