Science Operations Software Engineer for Gaia @ Madrid, Spain

Job offered.

Wanted to work in the Space field, have strong java skills, knowledge and experience in at least some of the following is essential: large DBMS, distributed processing, numerical and statistical techniques?

 If yes, continue the reading then...
 This is a copy from the HESPACE website vacancies job offer where you can find more details.
 Please, if you apply, please leave a comment and i will contact you for details. Thanks in advance.

 HE Space is a successful international space company. For 30 years, we have been supporting our customers with qualified experts in the field of engineering, science and administration. We are currently looking for a Science Operations Software Engineer for Gaia to support our customer in Spain.

 Key Tasks and Responsibilities 

 In this role you will be working on-site at ESAC as part of the Gaia mission. The Gaia mission is planning to map to microarcsecond accuracy 1% of the stellar population of our galaxy - that is around one thousand million objects. The data reduction of the ~100 Terabytes of downlinked data is estimated to require a Petabyte storage system.

 The processing will be a community wide effort performed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) in which ESAC plays a coordination role. The ESAC team is forming Gaia’s Science Operations Centre (SOC) and is heavily involved in the overall architecture and the core processing which is distributed over five locations and ESAC will form the hub for data exchange via the Main Database.

 You will support ESA in developing science operations systems and tools, including:

•  System engineering and architectural design activities, including operating plans and procedures;
•  Designing, developing, implementing, testing, deploying, operating and maintaining software tools and systems, eg:
• observation proposal handling, mission planning and quick-look systems, parts of which may be distributed to the community,
• user support tools, 
• interactive analysis and calibration systems, to be distributed –as needed– to the community for data reduction and analysis,
• data processing pipelines,
• Scientific data archives and interfacing these to the virtual observatory. 

 Skills and Experience 

 You will have the following qualifications and relevant experience:

• University degree or equivalent in computer science or related fields; 
• Strong Java skills; 
• Knowledge and experience in at least some of the following is essential: large DBMS, distributed processing, numerical and statistical techniques;
• Knowledge of ECSS standards for software development, JDK 1.7 / RMI / Generics, OO design, distributed processing, numerical programming in Java, JUnit / Eclipse/ Ant, JDBC / DBMS interaction, subversion and large Databases/data processing (>1TB);
• Basic educational or work-acquired knowledge of astronomy/physics and standard numerical methods and techniques would be a strong asset;
• Experience working with large data volumes, ICDs, data dictionaries would be an asset; Experience in interacting with the science community would be an advantage; Fluency in English is mandatory. This job is located near Madrid, Spain. We are looking for candidates who are available from March 2013 (or as soon as possible thereafter). If you think you have what it takes for this job, please send us your CV together with a letter of motivation (both in English) to Ms Sarah Gonschorek, quoting job reference NL-HP-1911 before 08 Feb 2013. 

 An exciting and dynamic international working environment awaits you!

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