In support of ESA’s Science, Robotics and Exploration Directorate at ESAC we are looking for : Computer System and GRID Engineer

The Science Archives and Computer Engineering Unit (SRE-OE) within the Science Operations Department (SRE-O), has the overall responsibility for developing, designing, deploying, operating and maintaining scientific archives and for computer support for all science projects at ESAC.

Within this unit, the Computer Support Group (CSG) is providing computer support to all projects located at ESAC (European Space Astronomy Centre,). This currently covers the ISO Data Centre including the Akari team, the XMM- Newton and Integral Science Operations Centres, the Herschel Science Centre, the GAIA Operations team, the Planck Science Office, the Lisa PF team, the Solar System Operations division and the Science Archives Team.

The scope of the present work package specifically excludes ESA corporate informatics infrastructure services (office automation, network, terminal servers, Lotus Notes, LAN and communications), which are provided and subject to separate Service Level Agreements (SLA).

The SRE computer environment at ESAC contains a number of computers dedicated to science operations and archive activities. These are based on Linux and Sun Solaris, Macintoshes, PC for Office Automation activities and some OpenVMS machines.

The candidate is expected to provide support in the following areas:

GRID related activities:

• Installation, configuration, integration, operations, maintenance and upgrade of Globus and Glite GRID middleware infrastructure
• Support users to adapt their computing tasks to the GRID infrastructure

UNIX (LINUX and SOLARIS), Macintosh and PC System management:

• Installation, configuration, integration and setting up of new machines with appropriate operating systems and layered software
• Administration and operation management of computer systems
• Installation and configuration of new disks and other devices and new users accounts
• User support (mainly scientists and engineers)
• Handle the mail aliases and mail distribution list
• Handling/checking/modifying all backups.
• Definition, implementation and maintenance of computer operators procedures
• Issues of documentation and technical reports

Contact with hardware and software suppliers:

• Definition of hardware/software needs and quotation requests for new purchases and maintenance contracts
• Locking hardware incidents calls and following the call history.
• Assisting technician when on site.

Others:

• Installation and maintenance of storage SAN/NAS infrastructure
• Installation and maintenance of Virtual Machines
• Installation and maintenance of Cloud computing infrastructure
• Installation and maintenance of compute clusters
• Interface with external ESA corporate informatics infrastructure service providers
• Design of network setup requirements and follow up of implementation
• Request of new network connections
• Installation and Maintenance of printers, scanners.

Skills and Experience:

• University degree in Software Engineering or equivalent;
• Knowledge of existing Science Operations computer environment and users at ESAC together with having significant knowledge in the following fields:
  • GRID technology (Globus, Glite)
  • Storage SAN/NAS technologies
  • Linux (RedHat) system management
  • Virtualization technologies
  • Cloud computing
  • PC Windows XP and Macintosh system management
  • Scientific user computer support
  • Network design and requirements
• Fluent in English; knowledge of another ESA Member State language is an asset.

Starting date: February 2011 or as soon as possible thereafter

An exciting international working environment in a highly innovative and motivated team awaits you!

HE Space Operations is an international human resources company specialised in the space market. We have been providing consultancy services in space engineering and business administration for over 25 years. We generally work directly on-site with our principal customers such as the European Space Agency and EADS Astrium.