Internal Research Fellow (PostDoc) in Differentiable Programming/Intelligence

Our team and mission This research fellowship will be carried out in ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team (ACT): a team of research fellows (post-docs) and young graduates who originate from a broad variety of academic fields and are aiming for an academic career. Its task is to monitor, perform and foster research on advanced space systems, innovative concepts and working methods. It interacts externally almost exclusively with academia and operates as a truly interdisciplinary team bound to high scientific standards. Through its research, the team acts as a pathfinder to explore novel, potentially promising areas for ESA and the space sector, ranging from applied to basic fundamental research topics. An important task of the team is to communicate scientific trends and results, as input to the strategic planning of the Agency.

The role You will carry out research in the field of differentiable programming/intelligence. The end-to-end differentiation of generic and complex computer programs (including control flows, data structures, and possibly memory) allows for the exploitation of any-order differentials to obtain transformative effects on the resulting algorithms and pipelines. As an ACT researcher, the candidate will: publish results in peer-reviewed publications and use modern communication tools to engage with a broader audience inside and outside ESA; lead and assist interdisciplinary projects with other ACT researchers; participate, together with the team, in the assessment of proposed space system concepts—these not being restricted only to differentiable programming/intelligence—and propose new concepts and assessment studies; perform and participate in assessments on subjects of strategic interest to ESA and provide in-house expertise for strategy development; benefit from the technology and engineering expertise available at ESTEC for research.

Job requirements You should have recently completed, or be close to completion of a PhD in celestial mechanics, aerospace engineering, applied maths, with the subject of the thesis being relevant to the description of the tasks outlined above. Preference will be given to applications submitted by candidates within five years of receiving their PhD. You should also have: Ability for and interest in prospective interdisciplinary research. Aptitude to contextualise specialised areas of research and quickly assess their potential with respect to other domains and applications (rapid prototyping). Academic networking to add functioning links to universities and research institutes. Ability to work in a team, while being able to work individually regarding your own personal research plans and directions. Natural curiosity and a passion for new subjects and research areas. Proficiency in C++ and Python programming languages. Experience in open source projects, GPU programming, distributed computing and cloud computing are considered to be strong assets.

Benefits The position of Research Fellow at ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) is similar to a regular academic Post-Doc placement, however with a few notable key differences: ACT RFs have no teaching obligations. Nonetheless, they will likely be involved in the mentoring of ESA Graduate Trainees and stagiaires (student interns) within the team. As the team does not have a professor-like position, ACT RFs are academically more independent than most post-docs. This implies more freedom but also more responsibility for their research directions and approaches. ACT RFs join a diverse, changing and interdisciplinary research team embedded in a large space agency, in contrast to a more specialised, focused research group with close or similar competences. ACT RFs need to actively reach out to other disciplines, to bring in their competences to interdisciplinary research projects and to encourage other researchers to join them in their core research projects (research at the intersections of disciplines). ACT RFs need to communicate their expertise and research results internally and externally, including potential implications and importance for ESA’s long-term strategy.

Applications details In addition to your CV and your motivation letter, please prepare a research proposal of no more than 5 pages. This proposal should be uploaded to the 'additional documents' field of the 'application information' section.