The Gaia group at the ICCUB offers a Cloud Engineer position at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB) of the University of Barcelona in the project SPACIOUS, funded by Horizon Europe. The engineer will be part of the Gaia-UB group (https://gaia.ub.edu/) with about 25 scientists and engineers of the Gaia mission.

The SPACIOUS project aims to boost the scientific exploitation of ESA missions’ data by developing a computational framework for astrophysical research that requires Big Data and Data Mining technologies to be addressed, with special focus on the Gaia and Euclid missions.

The position offered will be devoted, on one hand, to contribute to the definition and implementation of a virtualized data mining environment for massive datasets such as the Gaia data releases or the forthcoming Euclid ones, in collaboration with project partners such as the University of Edinburgh or the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. On the other hand, it will work on the definition and deployment of the data mining environment in a commercial cloud service, such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services, aiming at running there large-scale proof-of-concept tests (or “scientific challenges”) on real mission data. The position will also provide technical support to test users.

Applicants must hold a higher education degree, by the time the contract starts, related to computer engineering or physics-related fields. We require knowledge (and will strongly value experience) in virtualization and containerisation (such as Docker and Kubernetes), cloud computing platforms (either private, educational, research or commercial), Big Data techniques and data mining frameworks (such as Apache Hadoop, Spark or Kafka). We will value experience in software development projects (including Python and Git or Subversion) and knowledge of astrophysical datasets such as Gaia. We will also value knowledge in Machine Learning services or libraries.

Employment conditions:

The position is offered for 2.5 years. The contract is expected to begin around July 2024. Gross annual salary is about 30.000€, depending on the experience. This includes social security and public healthcare benefits, covering spouse and children.

Applicants should provide:

● curriculum vitae
● letter of motivation including experience and interests (2 pages max).

Applications should be done using this link before March 21st, 2024.

Inquiries about the application submission can be directed to Lola Balaguer (lbalaguer@fqa.ub.edu).
For inquiries about the scientific or technical aspects, please contact Xavier Luri (xluri@fqa.ub.edu).

About the Institute of Cosmos Sciences:

Relevant to the offered position, researchers of the institute have broad interests, including galactic dynamics, open and globular clusters, stellar physics, star formation, models of galaxy formation and evolution, the Large Magellanic Clouds, computational astrophysics, data analysis, cloud computing.
The Institute of Cosmos Sciences is a research institute of the University of Barcelona. It is an interdisciplinary center dedicated to fundamental research in the fields of cosmology, astrophysics, and particle physics. In addition, the institute has a strong technology program through its participation in international collaborations in observational astronomy and experimental particle physics.

As part of the University of Barcelona, the ICCUB is a recipient of the European Commission’s HR Excellence in Research (HRS4R) Award, which recognises, among other achievements, respect for equal opportunities and the capacity to attract talent in a positive working environment that promotes the pursuit of successful research careers. The ICCUB respects the principles of open, transparent, merit-based selection. We strongly encourage women and underrepresented minorities to apply. For additional information please see the Diversity, equity and inclusion Commission.
The ICCUB is located in Barcelona, considered the 8th World's Best Cities 2022: one with near- perfect weather year-round, miles and miles of beaches, iconic parks, striking architecture and colorful neighborhoods that march to their own beat—artistic, sophisticated, bohemian. Moreover, it is a pole of attraction for the technology sector, a top choice to establish a company in this sector, and it hosts some of the world's major technological events, such as the Mobile World Congress and the Smart City Expo. In addition, Barcelona and its metropolitan area is a leading destination on the map of global technological ecosystems and
has infrastructures such as science parks, universities and the 22@ district.

SPACIOUS is a Horizon Europe HORIZON-CL4-2023-SPACE-01-71 project funded under grant agreement no. 101135205