Engineering Traineeship

The trainee will be expected to carry out under supervision the following duties, depending on the area of work or assigned team:

Space Segment Support:

• Support the Space Segment and Launch Services contracts execution, including traceability of the amendments;
• Follow-up on the deliverable items from Satellites Manufacturers to Operations Team (GSOp), including maintenance of the deliverable items tracking tool;
• Support the preparation and review of technical notes for space segment and launch services, integrated schedules for satellites and launches as well as the risks & opportunities for Space Segment and Launch Services;
• Assist in the preparation and distributions of minutes of meetings, reports, and multi-lateral coordination with other stakeholders (e.g. ESA, European Commission, Launch Services Provider).

Engineering Architecture Support:

• Support the evolution of the Engineering Process based on standards and good practise;
• Support the preparation and review of technical documentation for the EUSPA Engineering Board.

Ground Segment of System in Operation Team:

• Support the assessment of hardware and software obsolescence status: establish line-replaceable units (LRU) and shop-replaceable units (SRU) map, fill-in Obsolescence Databases and running the spares End-of-Life (EOL) predictive models for EGNOS and Galileo Ground Segment versions in operations, under deployment and under development;
• Support the implementation of actions for improvement of the obsolescence assessment, including improving the forms and tools used for obsolescence monitoring (obsolescence surveys, obsolescence alert template, etc.), improving the spares End-of-Life (EOL) predictive model. 

Security Risk Assessment and Cyber Team:

• Follow up on classified deliveries (e.g. distribution/dispatch linked to need to know, delivery status);
• Provide support to the EU Space Space Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (ISAC);
• Contribute to the preparation of CONOPS for our SRA/cyber tools.

User Segment and Downstream Tools Team:

• Contribute to automating the monthly performance reports (e,g, database, some SW developments, identification of tools);
• Trace CLA and UNCLA deliveries;
• Support the setup of the GNSS lab;
• Support the preparation of meetings with industry (e.g. information webinars for new procurements/grants).

Mission, Services and Standards Team:

• Support Galileo and EGNOS Service documentation;
• Develop the GNSS lab documentation explaining the available tools and software;
• Collect inputs from EUSPA departments for various tasks (e.g. EUROCONTROL list of actions);
• Act as interface between Engineering and EUSPA's Communications team for publication of EUSPA news;
• Prepare and present webinars (in particular for new procurements);
• Support the testing of the test bed platforms in the GNSS lab.

Candidates are invited to indicate their preference (of area of work) in the motivation letter.

Eligibility Criteria

The traineeship is open to applicants who have not previously undertaken a regular (paid) traineeship at EUSPA and who meet the following requirements:

1. Have a nationality of any Member State of the European Union, Iceland or Norway;
2. A recognised higher education degree (university education or equivalent), evidencing completion of a full cycle of study, or in the case of candidates who are at the end of their studies, an official certification confirming that students are currently in their final year of academic studies;
3. Have interest or knowledge about one or more areas of work of the Agency obtained during their studies/research projects/traineeships or through previous professional experience;
4. Possess a thorough knowledge of one official language of the European Union and a satisfactory knowledge of another language of the European Union; one of these languages must be the working language of the Agency (English);
5. Have a clean criminal record.

Selection Criteria

The applications will be assessed against the following criteria:

1. Education and/or work experience in the area of engineering;
2. Education and/or work experience in the area  of security (e.g. Key management, cyber, cryptographic,..);
3. Education and/or work experience in engineering standards (e.g.ECSS, ISO,..);
4. Experience in programming languages (e.g. C, C++), scripting languages (e.g. python, perl) and numeric computation platforms (e.g. MATLAB);
5. Structured approach in solving problems;
6. Good organisational skills;
7. Effective communication skills, including the ability to summarise information;
8. Excellent command of both written and spoken English;
9. Motivation for the post.

The European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) provides safe and secure European satellite navigation services, advances the commercialization of Galileo, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), and Copernicus data and services, engages in secure SATCOM (GOVSATCOM & IRIS2), and operates the Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) Front Desk. Through these projects, EUSPA enhances European autonomy in space technologies, fosters innovation and creativity, supports European transport net and agriculture, all while contributing to the economic growth and health of the European Union.

EUSPA offers a diverse multicultural workplace that welcomes all applicants without distinction on any grounds of gender, race, ethnic or social origin, nationality, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, birth, gender identity, disability, age, sexual orientation, marital status or other family situation. EUSPA wishes to employ competent talents and be representative of the diversity of the EU citizens and is committed to provide the best working conditions and benefits to its staff. For more information on the EUSPA and the EU Space Programme, click here.

The Engineering Department ensures the Agency’s technical leadership on all matters related to system infrastructure, service, and security engineering, and acts as the Engineering Centre of Competence. The Department is responsible for ensuring the robustness and security of the systems in operations, for developing the infrastructure of the EUSPA service facilities, for providing the operations and service requirements to new system developments, and for engineering new services and their receivers that ensure the wide usage of EU Space data. The Department interfaces the European Space Agency as design authority of EGNOS and Galileo, and with the industry in charge of the evolution and maintenance of the systems in operation and of the service facilities.

The position requires relocation to one of the sites of the Agency – either the headquarters in Prague (the Czech Republic) or one of our centres in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Toulouse (France), Noordwijk (the Netherlands), and Torrejon de Ardoz and San Martin de la Vega (Spain).