Project Support Officer for Einstein Telescope Organisation (ETO) (EN-ACE-OSS-2025-118-GRAP)

Job Description

Your responsibilities

You will serve as an Organisation and Scheduling Support Project Officer in the Engineering Department (EN), within the Accelerators, Coordination, and Engineering Group , in the Organisation, Scheduling & Support Section. You will play a key role in the drafting of the technical design report and in the coordination of the collaboration agreement with the Einstein Telescope Organisation ( ETO ).

The Einstein Telescope (ET) is a proposed underground facility for a third-generation gravitational-wave observatory. Building on the success of Advanced Virgo and Advanced LIGO, which detected merging black holes and neutron stars, ET will have much higher sensitivity. ET will enable exploration of the Universe's gravitational waves back to the cosmological dark ages, offering insights into fundamental physics and cosmology.

Your responsibilities will include close collaboration with stakeholders involved in the design, installation, and operation of the facility and its technical infrastructure.

Specifically, you will:

• Support the collaboration agreement technical coordinators to manage the various related activities, especially the interfaces between stakeholders.
• Support the definition of schedules from the system level to the master schedule, enabling strategic planning.
• Understand, analyse, and schedule installation activities to propose an optimal sequence, including logistics and safety compliance related to potential co-activities by collaborating with relevant safety stakeholders.
• Adapt and apply CERN methodology and experience.
• Support the definition of the necessary reference technical documentation and the editing of the schedule management plan, identifying processes, procedures and roles.
• Define how to implement schedule analysis techniques, when necessary, like PERT (Programme Evaluation and Review Technique) or RBSA (Risk-Based Schedule Analysis).
• Define procedures, as far as the schedule is concerned, for the Earned Value Management application.
• Prepare documentation and facilitate communication between stakeholders, ensuring clear and efficient collaboration.
• Introduce correct schedule performance metrics (schedule variance, KPI, performance index, % completion, etc).

More information here: https://videos.cern.ch/record/2301718

Your profile

Skills:

• Demonstrated understanding of technical challenges and project management.
• Experience in project coordination, planning, or technical project support.
• Organisational, scheduling, and analytical skills.
• Experience in working with project planning tools and data analysis (e.g., MS Project, Oracle database management, VBA, Python, etc).
• Strong communication skills.
• Stakeholders' management in an international environment.
• Spoken and written English, with a commitment to learn French.

Eligibility criteria:

• You are a national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State .
• You have a professional background in Engineering (or a related field) and have either:
  • a Master's degree with 2 to 6 years of post-graduation professional experience.
  • or a PhD with no more than 3 years of post-graduation professional experience.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.

To apply, please upload a copy of your CV as well reference letter(s) if available.

Additional Information

Job closing date: 03.08.2025 at 23:59 CEST.

Contract duration: 24 months, with a possible extension up to 30 months maximum.

Working hours: 40 hours per week

Target start date: 01-October-2025

This position involves:

• Work in Radiation Areas.
• Interventions in underground installations.
• A valid driving licence.

Job reference: EN-ACE-OSS-2025-118-GRAP

Field of work: Mechanical Engineering

What we offer

• A monthly stipend ranging between 6287  and 6911  Swiss Francs per month (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.

We are on a Quest. A Journey into discovery like no other. Bring your expertise to our unique work and develop your knowledge and skills at pace. Join world-class subject matter experts on unique projects, in a Quest for greater knowledge and deeper understanding.

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