Junior Professional in Resilient and Secure Ground Operations Services

Junior Professional in Resilient and Secure Ground Operations Services

Job Requisition ID: 20692

Date Posted: 30 June 2026

Closing Date: 28 July 2026 23:59 CET/CEST

Publication: Internal & External

Type of Appointment: Junior Professional

Directorate: Operations

Workplace:

Darmstadt, DE

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;
• co