Software Engineer in Data Management (EP-ADP-CO-2025-185-GRAE)

Company Description

Job Description

Your responsibilities

We are offering a position in the Rucio development team at CERN. Rucio is an open-source scientific data management system responsible to manage the data of some of the biggest scientific data communities in the world. Experiments such as ATLAS, CMS, Belle II, DUNE, and many others rely on Rucio, which manages world-wide distributed data in the multi-exabyte range.

This work will be carried out in the context of the CERN ATLAS Team, which is responsible to drive Rucio's development for the requirements of the ATLAS Experiment.

You will join the Rucio core development team in the Experimental Physics department, a dedicated group of software engineers and computer scientists who work on the frontier of scientific data management. You will contribute to the design, development, and evolution of the system, help operate the Rucio deployment for the ATLAS Experiment, and collaborate with a variety of people at CERN, within the experiment, and the diverse open-source community of Rucio.

Concrete challenges and area of work involve the x509 to oAuth token migration, optimisation of database interactions, as well as general scalability optimisation for HL-LHC workloads.

In particular, you will:

• Design, develop and maintain core components of the Rucio system.
• Improve the usability and performance of Rucio in the context of the ATLAS Experiment.
• Participate in DevOps tasks for the ATLAS Rucio deployment.
• Participate in the evolution of Rucio in the wider scientific data management community.

A qualification in the field of Computer Science or a closely related field is required.

Your profile

Skills:

• Excellent skills in the Python programming language.
• Proven experience in software design, architecture, and continuous integration.
• Strong knowledge in distributed systems, computer networks, databases.
• Confident user of the Linux operating system and container orchestration via Kubernetes.
• Knowledge of the scientific computing domain will be an advantage.
• Spoken and written English, with a commitment to learn French.

Eligibility criteria:

• You are a national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State .
• By the application deadline, you have a maximum of two years of professional experience since graduation in Computer Science (or a related field) and your highest educational qualification is either a Bachelor's or Master's degree.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.
• Applicants without University degree are not eligible.
• Applicants with a PhD are not eligible.

Qualifications

Additional Information

Job closing date: 07.10.2025 at 23:59 CEST.

Contract duration: 24 months, with a possible extension up to 36 months maximum.

Working hours: 40 hours per week

Target start date: 01-January-2026

This position involves:

• Stand-by duty, when required by the needs of the Organisation.
• Work during nights, Sundays and official holidays, when required by the needs of the Organisation.

Job reference: EP-ADP-CO-2025-185-GRAE

Field of work: Software Engineering and IT

What we offer

• A monthly stipend ranging between 5196  and 5716  Swiss Francs (net of tax).
• Coverage by CERN's comprehensive health scheme (for yourself, your spouse and children), and membership of the CERN Pension Fund.
• Depending on your individual circumstances: installation grant; family, child and infant allowances; payment of travel expenses at the beginning and end of contract.
• 30 days of paid leave per year.
• On-the-job and formal training at CERN as well as in-house language courses for English and/or French.

About us

At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. Using the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments, they study the basic constituents of matter - fundamental particles that are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives physicists clues about how particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature. Find out more on http://home.cern.

Diversity has been an integral part of CERN's mission since its foundation and is an established value of the Organization. Employing a diverse workforce is central to our success.