About this job

For our customer, the European Space Agency (ESA), we are seeking an experienced space Product Assurance and Safety (PA&S) Engineer to work at ESA’s ESTEC site in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

Responsibilities

You will be assigned to ESA/ESTEC’s Product Assurance Management Section within the Directorate of Technical and Quality Management.

This group of Product Assurance and Safety (PA&S) engineers  are responsible for failure-proofing missions by ensuring that the materials, mechanical parts, processes and electrical components used to assemble a spacecraft or launcher shall be fit for purpose over the entire life of a mission.

They do this by providing engineering support to all ESA activities, verifying compliance to Product Assurance requirements. They represent an independent technical authority in the materials, mechanical parts, processes and electrical component domains, while also providing bespoke space environmental exposure facilities for use in support of European programmes.

They also seek to secure the availability of qualified materials, parts, processes and personnel to all ESA missions, future-proofing them by guaranteeing short, medium and long-term access to critical technologies, monitoring industry trends across all technical domains to help underpin Europe’s competitiveness in the space sector.

In this role you will support the ESA project PA & Safety Manager for designated project(s) in conducting, monitoring & assessing the implementation of the PA & Safety Programme. This includes support to any or all of the following activities:

• Establishing the PA&S requirements baseline for all elements of the project, in compliance with the ESA general Product Assurance and Safety policy; Produce and implement plans, define inputs, outputs, participants, responsibilities, interfaces, coordinate efforts of participants, and produce resulting consolidated inputs.
• Reviewing contractor’s plans, specifications and effort proposed for the execution of the project PA&S programme; Produce reports of review activities performed (e.g. documents reviewed, checklists used, spot check performed) and conclusions/recommendations.
• Monitoring project & PA status & identify relevant PA issues, including NCR / SPR / Waivers / Problems / Critical Items and systematically tracking all items. Produce monthly reports of monitoring activities performed (e.g. inspections, checks, visits, reviews), including conclusions and recommendations.
• Assessing the implementation of PA&S requirements by contractors, participating in design and safety reviews and directing the necessary preventive or corrective actions; Produce monthly reports with assessment activities performed (e.g. documents reviewed, checklists used, spot check performed), contribution to design and safety reviews, and activities related to preventive/corrective action.
• Participating in the Boards established within the project for the disposition of Non-conformances / Failure Reviews, Test Reviews, etc.; Produce reports of participation to boards, indicating the contribution made to these boards (e.g. review of agendas, participants, minutes of meeting, action follow up, close-out).
• Guiding and monitoring the application and procurement of EEE parts, materials and processes and controlling implementation of applicable requirements; Produce reports on guidance provided, monitoring activities performed and status of compliance to applicable requirements.
• Monitoring the manufacturing, integration and test activities with quality assurance audits, mandatory and key inspection points, test witnessing and configuration inspections; Produce report on activities performed with conclusion and recommendations.
• Defining the formal acceptance requirements and conducting the Acceptance Reviews of all contractual deliverable items; Produce and implement plans for the preparation of the formal acceptance requirements, defining steps, inputs, outputs, participants, responsibilities, interfaces, and coordinating efforts of participants to produce resulting consolidated inputs to project documents. Produce also reports on the activities performed for conduction of Acceptance Reviews.
• Supporting the organisation & management of the support from all PA disciplines
• Controlling NCR / Waivers / Problems / Critical Items. Produce meeting agendas, check that all inputs are available for the NRB or CCB, check that all needed participants are involved, produce NRB or CCB minutes of meeting, follow-up on actions identified, ensure proper non-conformance/wavier/problem/critical item close-out. Produce also reports on control activities performed.
• PA for the verification, qualification, acceptance & delivery activities.
• Support to the project’s launch campaign.
• Participating in progress meetings and CCB meetings. Produce inputs to the meeting and whenever requested, produce meeting agendas, check that all inputs are available, check that all needed participants are involved, produce minutes of meeting, follow-up on actions identified, ensure proper close-out.
• Participating in all project reviews, including safety reviews. Produce reports on all review activities performed (e.g. documents reviewed, checklists used, spot check performed), conclusions and recommendations.
• Reporting project PA status (deviations from plan / schedule of all of above).

The exact tasks to be performed will depend on the specific project(s) and agreed in coordination with the ESA project PA & Safety Manager.

This is a full-time position located at ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

The requested start of work is February 2021 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Profile

The successful candidate shall have:

• A Masters’ level degree in an engineering discipline or the technical sciences.
• At least 10 years experience in the space sector including 5 years in Product Assurance, preferably in the areas of Earth Observation Programme, Science Programme, and/or Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration.

Soft skills:

• Excellent interpersonal skills are needed, together with a high degree of organizational and communication abilities, and comfortable with working in a diverse and multinational team environment.

Desirable:

• Knowledge and experience working with Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) and their use in space R&D activities is an asset.
• Good knowledge of the applicable space standards (ECSS series) desirable.
• Knowledge of Configuration Management or the implementation of Product Assurance within a quality system certified to ISO 9001 would be an asset.

What can Terma Offer?

At Terma, we consider skilled employees, enthusiasm and job satisfaction as the very foundation of our success and as a prerequisite for the development of the “best-in-class” solutions that Terma provides. We lead the way in applying new technology, offering a wide range of growth opportunities for each individual and emphasizing mutual respect across the board in our workplace.

Terma offers you a pleasant working environment at the customer site, where you will be able to take on challenging tasks and responsibilities in a highly professional company.

• Great opportunities for training and personal development
• Challenges in advanced technical environment
• International and cosmopolitan working atmosphere
• An employment contract with an attractive package with extra-legal benefits
• Highly competitive salary
• Support on re-location (if applicable)

Recruitment is depending on successful selection by the customer.

Additional information

To ensure that your application will reach us and is properly processed please apply directly through our career page:

https://www.terma.com/careers/apply-to-open-positions/

Include an up-to-date Curriculum Vitae and a Cover Letter highlighting your background and expertise as well as earliest date of availability.

For further information, please contact Mr. Simon Mills

by telephone [+31 6 2326 2398] or by email [recruitment.nl@terma.com].

Closing date: January 27th 2021

Please note the following Legal & Security requirements:

• Applicants must hold all appropriate permits to work in the EU.
• Applicants are required to provide a copy of their ID/passport and degree/higher education certificate. Terma will validate the certificate with the issuing authority.
• In line with ESA security requirements, an official Certificate of Good Conduct (or equivalent) and employment reference checks will be required at commencement of employment. Please attach a copy of any reference letters with your application if you have them.

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