About this job

Sapienza Consulting is recruiting a Future Programmes Officer to support the TIA Directorate at ESA-ECSAT and to support the Future Projects division. These activities include the scouting of new industrial business partners interested in entering into partnership with ESA or benefiting from ESA support initiating end-to-end satellite systems with a high degree of innovations both in terms of technologies, services and business models. The incumbent will be a part of a team focused on Future Programmes Acquisition, aimed at initiating new development programmes in the areas of satellite and 5G, new constellation of satellites and Artificial Intelligence applications to satellite systems.

The Future Programmes Officer will have industrial experience in the design and development of satellite communication systems, and business development experience in relevant technology sectors.

The Future Programmes Officer will be expected to travel regularly to industrial premises or technical and business events.

Responsibilities

• Assessing the business environment evolution for satcom, terrestrial telecom and space and potential impact to the satcom key stakeholders
• Identifying and justifying selected business partners to focus on (as a combination of demand/partner pull and techno/industry push) using key criteria of relevance and impact for industry competitiveness and introduction of innovation.
• Analysing opportunities with the selected business partners, in some of the focus areas identified in business exploration (5G, satellite constellations, artificial intelligence). The analysis must be based on structured action plans and result in justified roadmaps leading to further business consolidation actions.
• Assess business, technological and operational requirements of SatCom networks including 5G and beyond (space and ground segments) and their integration with terrestrial wired and wireless networks in an end-to-end system context, with the aim of attracting and acquiring new partners;
• Prepare action plans and development of roadmaps in close cooperation with relevant stakeholders (e.g. SatCom and terrestrial industry) in order to foster the use of innovative SatCom solutions including 5G;
• Promote the use of satellite in 5G and attract stakeholders to collaborate with ESA in implementing and demonstrating integrated end-to-end 5G systems and services
• Promote the use of Artificial Intelligence in satellite systems and attract relevant stakeholders to collaborate with ESA in implementing and demonstrating AI based satcom systems
• Monitoring and assessing the need and commercial potential for future satellite telecommunication missions and systems
• Analysis, definition, initiation and management of industrial activities associated to new projects in the telecommunication satellite system domain
• Definition of all the elements end-to-end associated to the mission/system architecture of new telecommunication satellite projects/systems
• Perform trade-offs between different concepts/technologies to optimize the end-to-end system

Due to the distributed and heterogeneous nature of the preparation of Future Projects, the incumbent will also be expected to communicate with the different groups involved in the preparation of new projects. This includes experts throughout ESA sites, manufacturing industry counterparts and satellite operators and service providers. To this extend, the contractor shall participate in working groups and meetings, such as:

• Preparatory working groups to identify/define new opportunities
• Exploratory meetings with potential industrial companies and with prospective partners
• Review meetings (preparatory phases: phase 0 and A)

Profile

• Master’s Degree in Engineering, Physics or equivalent qualification
• At least 10 years of relevant work experience in a combination of technical management and business development
• Significant demonstrated industrial experience in satellite telecommunication systems or cellular telecommunication systems, or other relevant technical fields (e.g. AI)
• Significant demonstrated design, including substantial experience in satellite payload, platform or telecommunication end-to-end system engineering
• Excellent organization and communications skills
• Technical excellence
• Business development skills
• Ability to interact at top management levels with potential new business partners
• Resourcefulness
• Self-motivation
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships
• Ability to document their work and to produce high quality documents
• Willingness to travel, when required
• Fluent in English; knowledge of another ESA member-state language is an asset
• Candidates must be eligible to work in the EU.

In addition:

• Ability to obtain a personal security clearance might be required
• A business or marketing degree could be considered (with a relevant background in an engineering environment)
• It is expected that the support will be provided predominantly on-site at ECSAT (Harwell UK), an initial training period in ESTEC, Noordwijk (NL) of maximum 3 months might however be required
• Regular travel for the purpose of supporting meetings and reviews (at Industry premises and to ESTEC in particular) shall be undertaken as required