Esa Graduate Trainee In Copernicus And Destination Earth Ai Engineering

Step into the future of Earth Observation with a YGT on ESA’s DestinE Initiative (Destination Earth) and Copernicus Space Component Programm activities. As part of our innovative team, you'll work closely with leading experts and industry partners to develop a next-generation digital ecosystem designed to optimize Earth Observation and data management. Under the guidance of our team, you’ll play a key role in shaping the future of digital Earth systems.

As part of ESA’s Earth Observation Framework, our team collaborates with European partners, industries, and experts to develop a comprehensive digital ecosystem. This ecosystem leverages Copernicus Sentinels and DestinE data management and modelling services to enable a wide range of user-driven applications and services. Our mission is to foster innovation, encourage sustainable growth, facilitate the access to one of the largest EO data holdings, unlock the use of AI on the EO data and build a dynamic network of services in Earth Observation while maximizing the use of Copernicus and DestinE data.

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

As an YGT at ESA working with Copernicus and Destination Earth, you will contribute to the design and implementation of innovative data management solutions and gain insights on Earth observation systems and how Earth observation data supports environmental monitoring.

Within Copernicus, you will contribute to the data engineering of Sentinel satellite missions, focusing on the design, implementation, and optimization of scalable data architectures for high-volume Earth observation data. This includes enabling efficient data ingestion, storage, processing, data flow monitoring, and data access to support large-scale analytics and AI-driven applications. You will also support downstream exploitation of Sentinel data by enabling interoperable services and workflows for a broad range of operational and scientific use cases.

In the context of Destination Earth (DestinE), you will work on data engineering solutions supporting the development of digital twins of the Earth system. This involves handling heterogeneous, multi-disciplinary datasets and designing architectures that enable the efficient integration, harmonization, and fusion of Earth observation data with digital twin components.

You will learn how ESA collaborates with industry partners from various sectors to leverage their expertise and technologies, ensuring the effective application of Earth observation data.

Your specific activities will include for example:

Knowledge of relevant technical/functional domains

Relevant experience gained during internships, project work and/or extracurricular or other activities

General knowledge of the space sector and relevant activities

Knowledge of ESA and its programmes/projects

Result Orientation

Operational Efficiency

Fostering Cooperation

Relationship Management

Continuous Improvement

Forward Thinking

For more information, please refer to ESA Core Behavioural Competencies guidebook

You should have recently completed or be in the final year of your master’s degree in Data Science or Computer Science or Engineering or Environmental Science or Physics

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. Previous experience of working in international teams can be considered an asset. Your motivation, overall professional perspective and career goals will also be explored during the later stages of the selection process.