Junior Professional in Resilient and Secure Ground Operations Services

Location: Darmstadt, DE

Junior Professional in Resilient and Secure Ground Operations Services

Job Requisition ID

20692

Date Posted

22 October 2026

Closing Date

12 November 2026 23:59 CET/CEST

Publication Method

Internal & External

Type of Appointment (learn more)

Junior Professional

Directorate

Operations

Workplace

Darmstadt, DE

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Grade Band

A1 - A1

This post is part of ESA’s Junior Professional Programme. We are looking for enthusiastic candidates with up to 3 years of relevant professional experience after their Master's degree to join ESA for a four-year assignment. During this time, you will be actively working and learning on the job and will benefit from valuable mobility and developmental opportunities that will prepare you for a successful career at ESA. Subject to performance, it is therefore the intention to offer you an indefinite contract which will start at the end of the four years.

Recruitment will take place at the A1 grade on the Coordinated Organisations’ salary scale. At the end of the fourth year and if you are offered an indefinite contract at the end of your Junior Professional assignment, you will be upgraded to the A2 grade.

Location

ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany

Developmental assignments form an integral part of the Junior Professional Programme and may entail a temporary relocation to another ESA establishment or other location.

Description

Junior Professional in Resilient and Secure Ground Operations Services. If selected for this position, you will report to the Head of the Mission Operations IT (MOI-IT) and Operations Control Centre (OCC) Section in the Ground Facilities Operations Division, Mission Operations Department, Directorate of Operations.

The unit is responsible for the coordination and end-to-end provision of services and facilities to all users of the mission operations infrastructure, which consists of the following elements that support routine spacecraft operations and launches:

The Operations Control Centre deployed at ESOC and in the ESA network of ground stations, such as data centres, or dedicated and main control rooms;

Mission Operations Infrastructure IT services and facilities, such as managed IT services, cybersecurity operations, local and wide area networks, or platform services.

You will work under the functional guidance of senior staff responsible for cybersecurity, operations resilience, and satellite telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) services. In the context of system accreditation and system certification, you will interface with the ESA Security Office, as required.

Within the context of ESA’s ESTRACK TT&C services to third-party customers and partners, you will help improve the dependability and resilience of ground operations services by applying methods drawn from the complementary fields of site-reliability engineering (SRE) and cybersecurity. In doing so, you will support ESA’s ability to continue service delivery in the presence of disruptions and to reduce recovery times following operational incidents.

As a Junior Professional, you will support this transformation by promoting SRE and cyber security best practices across the ground operations environments, while gaining hands-on experience in operational contexts and working closely with experienced engineers and stakeholders.

Duties

During your first year, you will work closely with experienced engineers to enhance the resilience and cybersecurity of TT&C services delivered by ESA to external entities, both commercial and institutional.

By the end of the first year, you will be expected to

analyse aspects of solution architecture and operational behaviour of the selected services, identifying cybersecurity and resilience risks based on a systematic assessment of cyber threats and potential systemic failures;

contribute to the refinement of service reliability and cybersecurity objectives, availability expectations and recovery targets appropriate for mission operations;

propose candidate enhancements to the target architecture to strengthen the overall security and reliability posture, such as applying automation-based solutions to replace repetitive manual activities, including system provisioning, configuration enforcement or operating system upgrades;

support improved observability and recoverability by refining procedures with the Cybersecurity Operations Centre at ESOC, including monitoring of signals, recovery workflows and rollback mechanisms;

support controlled security and reliability testing, such as safe disruption or incident simulations in non-operational environments, to validate assumptions and improve recovery readiness;

produce and maintain integrated, version-controlled documentation that accurately reflects the design, operation and recovery processes of the services.

Clear goals, success criteria and milestones for this first-year assignment will be defined prior to your start, ensuring a structured and successful introduction to the role.

Development programme

In addition to your daily work, you will take part in an extensive learning and development programme. From day one, you will learn on the job and benefit from tailored development opportunities, including participation in technical and key skills training courses.

Furthermore, there is a mobility component to the Junior Professional Programme that can be either an internal rotation to another team within ESA, an external secondment outside of ESA or a combination of both. Internal rotations aim to boost your professional experience and knowledge of the European Space Agency, whereas external secondments aim to boost your professional experience and knowledge of the European space sector.

Given ESA’s diverse activities, you will find many opportunities for internal rotation. You may venture into observing flight operations, cybersecurity, space safety, participating in technology study