Our team and mission

ESA’s High-Performance Computing (HPC) team is responsible for managing and maintaining ESA’s state-of-the-art computing infrastructure, which supports various scientific and engineering projects across the Agency.

We are a team of experienced professionals who are passionate about sharing our knowledge and supporting the growth of all new team members. The HPC team fosters a culture that encourages curiosity, learning and innovation, making it an ideal environment for young graduates to develop new skills and contribute to cutting edge projects.

As a member of the team, you will have access to a wide range of resources and professional development opportunities, including workshops, seminars and networking events. This is a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience with HPC technologies, deepen your understanding of AI/GPU workloads, and contribute to a project that has the potential to significantly impact ESA’s science and engineering initiatives.

The selected candidate will become part of a dynamic and supportive environment where you can grow professionally, learn from experienced mentors, and make a meaningful contribution to an exciting project in the field of High-Performance Computing and artificial intelligence.

You are encouraged to visit the ESA website: http://www.esa.int

Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship

The aim of this specific project is to investigate and develop strategies for efficiently parallelising and optimising AI/GPU workloads on ESA’s HPC resources. This includes distributed training and inference of deep learning models, as well as exploiting the full potential of GPU nodes through techniques such as mixed-precision training and tensor core utilisation.

As a Young Graduate Trainee, you will have the opportunity to:

• Gain hands-on experience with state-of-the-art HPC technologies and deepen your understanding of AI/GPU workloads;
• Explore and experiment with parallelisation and optimisation techniques for distributed training and inference of deep learning models;
• Work with the HPC team to implement and test new approaches on ESA’s HPC resources;
• Document findings, best practices and recommendations;
• Present progress and results in meetings and talks.

Throughout your traineeship, you will be immersed in a dynamic and supportive environment where learning and innovation are highly valued. By joining the HPC team, you will have the opportunity to grow professionally, learn from experienced mentors and make a meaningful contribution to an exciting HPC project.

Technical competencies

Behavioural competencies

Result Orientation

Operational Efficiency

Fostering Cooperation

Relationship Management

Continuous Improvement

Forward Thinking

Education

You should have just completed or be in the final year of your master’s in computer science, engineering, physics, mathematics, or a related field with a focus on HPC, AI, machine learning or deep learning.

Additional requirements

You should have good interpersonal and communication skills and should be able to work in a multicultural environment, both independently and as part of a team.

The following would be considered an asset for this role:

• Some familiarity with deep learning frameworks
• Experience with GPU programming
• Basic understanding of parallel computing concepts and techniques (MPI, OpenMP)
• Knowledge of containerisation technologies (e.g., Docker, Singularity)

The working languages of the Agency are English and French. A good knowledge of one of these is required. Knowledge of another Member State language would be an asset.

During the interview motivation and overall professional perspective/career goals will also be explored.