VN 26/42 Machine Learning Application Developer

EUMETSAT generates and uses data from its growing fleet of Earth observation satellites, together with data from partner agencies, to support weather forecasting—including nowcasting and numerical weather prediction—by meteorological and other environmental agencies in its Member States and worldwide. In addition, EUMETSAT supports climate monitoring by providing a wide range of satellite data, including rescued, recalibrated and reprocessed long-term series of satellite observations. EUMETSAT also supports its users in exploiting AI/ML by applying these methods to its core data products and through dedicated data curation activities.

Within the Climate Services Team of the User Support and Climate Services Division (USC), the Machine Learning Application Developer exploits satellite data using AI/ML methods to derive weather and climate information, including the identification and characterisation of Earth system features such as convective storms and fog. In addition, the post holder contributes to the development of the weather forecasting and early warning value chain, as well as to kilometre-scale climate modelling, by supporting users in integrating EUMETSAT ML-ready data into their applications and by establishing collaborations across the wider community.

The team brings together staff with a wide range of world-class expertise, including weather and climate as well as Earth observation domain experts, data processing engineers, and machine learning specialists. Joining EUMETSAT in this role offers a unique opportunity to develop your professional career in a highly motivating international environment.

Duties

• Support EUMETSAT internal and external users by creating data pipelines and curated ML-ready datasets with needed data content, quality, format, and structure for each use case;
• Develop, train, apply, and validate machine-learning models and other algorithms to transform Earth observation data into actionable information, particularly for Earth system feature detection;
• Explore and share the best ways to apply modern techniques and access Earth Observation data with the aim of helping the community to develop, train, and apply the models;
• Foster community development by encouraging and assisting EUMETSAT users in sharing commonly applicable parts of their applications in the form of how-to articles, code examples, infrastructure configurations, pre-trained models, datasets, etc;
• Take an active role in user communities and support training courses, hackathons, and other community-oriented means of spreading practical knowledge to EUMETSAT member states.

LOCATION: Darmstadt, Germany

QUALIFICATIONS: Master’s or higher degree in a relevant computing or natural sciences subject.

LANGUAGES: The official languages of EUMETSAT are English and French. Candidates must be able to work effectively in English and be willing to learn French.

DEADLINE: 28 October 2026.

Skills and Experience

• Experience in ML model development and evaluation, preferably in weather and climate or Earth observation domain;
• Experience with at least one of the relevant ML libraries (Scikit Learn, TensorFlow, Keras, PyTorch…);
• Proven strong programming skills in at least Python and some experience in working with compiled languages and with modern collaborative software development practices, including Git-based development workflows, CI/CD pipelines, code review, and automated testing;
• Experience in working with large datasets;
• Experience in working in cloud environments;
• Eagerness to learn and expand one’s own knowledge, combined with ease in joining teams to solve problems and communicate resolutions;
• Excellent communication skills, with a proven ability to work effectively as part of a team, strong problem-solving skills, and a positive, can-do attitude.

The below skills and experience are seen as an advantage:

• Experience in working with Earth observation and weather and climate data;
• Experience in using machine learning pipelines and frameworks (MLFlow, Kubeflow, etc.);
• Contributions to the open-source software ecosystems.

Employment Conditions

The initial contract will be of 4 years’ duration, with subsequent 5 year contracts being awarded thereafter, subject to individual performance and organisation requirements. There is no limit to the amount of follow-up contracts a staff member can receive up to the EUMETSAT retirement age of 63 and there are certainly opportunities to establish a long career perspective at EUMETSAT.
This post is graded A2/A4 on the EUMETSAT salary scales. The minimum basic salary for this post is EURO 7,553 per month (net of internal tax but excluding pension contribution and insurances) which may be negotiable on the basis of skills and experience. The salary scale provides for increments on the anniversary of taking up employment, and scales are reviewed by the EUMETSAT Council with effect from 1 January each year. In addition to basic salary, EUMETSAT offers attractive benefits. Further information, including salary details, is available on the EUMETSAT web site.

EUMETSAT is committed to providing an equal opportunities work environment for men and women.
Please note that only nationals of EUMETSAT Member States may apply. The EUMETSAT Convention requires that Staff shall be recruited on the basis of their qualifications, account being taken of the international character of EUMETSAT.

About EUMETSAT

EUMETSAT is Europe’s meteorological satellite agency. Its role is to establish and operate meteorological satellites to monitor the weather and climate from space - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This information is supplied to the National Meteorological Services of the organisation's Member States in Europe, as well as other users worldwide.

EUMETSAT also operates several Copernicus missions on behalf of the European Union and provide data services to the Copernicus marine and atmospheric services and their users.

As an intergovernmental European Organisation, EUMETSAT has 30 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.)