IT Specialist (m/f/d)

The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries.

ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in northern Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor (home to ALMA and APEX), and the ESO Headquarters are located in Garching, near Munich, Germany.

At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory, and will host and operate the southern array of the Cherenkov Telescope Array, the world's largest and most sensitive high energy gamma-ray observatory. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky" and whose operations will be fully integrated into the Paranal Observatory.

For its IT Department in the IT Group in Garching, within the Directorate of Engineering, ESO is opening an International Staff Member position of:

IT Specialist

Database Management Systems form the central component of the ESO and ALMA Science Operations that utilise OLAP, OLTP, Replication and Document DBMS from SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and Couchbase. After finishing your university degree in computer science or equivalent, you have gained several years of general IT experience: understanding operating systems, storage, backup and recovery, networking; and will have specialized in Database Management Systems.

You will have experience in the administration of primarily SAP ASE, and secondarily in another database management system such as Oracle or Microsoft. You may have configured and administered bi-directional database replication across a WAN and have assisted development teams in the engineering of software using this technology, and database transaction conflict resolution. You may also have knowledge of other relational and NoSQL database technologies and their implementation.

You will know how to install, configure and maintain database servers; tune them and carry out backup and recovery. You will have a sound understanding of SQL; can analyse queries; and provide support and advice to users on queries and application development. You are a proficient script developer and have experience in Python or other scripting languages. You can take responsibility to establish, measure, enhance and fulfil IT operational level agreements in planning and follow up on execution and KPI performance with IT Service stakeholders, IT User support management and IT suppliers.

Initially you will be made responsible for the SAP DBMS infrastructure providing support to the current SAP DBMS Subject Matter Expert and your peers; and depending on your profile and skillset, additional responsibility will follow, as your knowledge and experience of the ESO technologies and environment increases. Ultimately you will control the evolution of the IT Services, considering changes, improvements, upgrades or obsolescence. You define and agree the regular reviews of the IT Services and document this in the operational level agreements with internal stakeholders.

Finally, you will also have an independent and autonomous way of working paired with team spirit and initial project coordination experience. This position requires an element of on-call in support of ESO Science Operations, shared within the database administration team.

Is there anything else which qualifies you for this job? Just let us know!

Qualifications:

A first level University degree (Bachelor) in any IT discipline (e.g. Computing) or equivalent degree.

Language Skills:

An excellent command of the English language - oral, reading and writing - is essential. A working knowledge of German and/or Spanish would be an advantage.