Place of work
Leipzig, remote working partially possible
Working time
100% (39h/week)
The job position is available for full-time or part-time employment.
Contract limitations
limited contract
Salary
Remuneration according to the TVöD public-sector up to pay grade 13 including attractive public-sector social security benefits.
Contact
Your contact for any questions you may have about the job:
Ulf Mallast ([email protected])
Martin Abbrent ([email protected])
Your application
To ensure a fair selection process, please submit your application (cover letter, CV, and relevant supporting documents) via our online portal without a photo, age information, or details about your marital status.
Diversity and Inclusion
The UFZ values diversity and is actively committed to ensuring equal opportunities for all employees, regardless of their origin, religion, beliefs, disability, age or sexual identity.
We welcome people who represent diverse backgrounds, identities and perspectives. We therefore particularly encourage people who are affected by structural discrimination to apply to us.
The UFZ
The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) is a world-leading institution in environmental research and a member of the Helmholtz Association, Germany’s largest scientific organisation. With approximately 1,200 employees across Leipzig, Halle, and Magdeburg, we have been conducting research since 1991 using a transdisciplinary approach to address the most pressing challenges of our time: biodiversity loss, climate change, and environmental pollution. Our goal is to translate excellent research into practical solutions for policymakers, business, and society, and to serve as a reliable partner in supporting transformation processes toward a sustainable and just future for current and future generations. We foster a culture of collaboration, openness, and diversity within a work environment that actively promotes creativity and personal development.
The job
UFZ is the lead institution of the eLTER ESFRI process, aiming at the establishment of the Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI, eLTER-RI.eu) in the context of the high level strategic platform for the development of priority European RIs (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures, ESFRI, https://www.esfri.eu/). The UFZ campus in Leipzig hosts the eLTER Head Office, which manages the eLTER ERIC legal entity and coordinates related eLTER projects and activities in close collaboration with the University of Helsinki.
165 scientific institutions in 28 countries and 26 national LTER networks have been collaborating in this process and creating the pan-European distributed physical network of > 250 highly instrumented ecosystem and socio-ecological research sites.Reliable environmental AI depends on trustworthy, harmonised and continuously quality-controlled data. At UFZ and eLTER, we develop scalable workflows that transform heterogeneous observations from distributed research sites and data platforms into interoperable, traceable and AI-ready data products.We are looking for a Researcher or Data Scientist to develop and operationalise AI-enabled workflows for the harmonisation, curation and quality assurance of environmental data and other applications. The position connects distributed environmental research infrastructures, continuously generated observation data and emerging AI models, translating methodological developments into reproducible and scalable workflows for scientific and operational use.
Your tasks
We are seeking a highly motivated Researcher or Data Scientist (f/m/x) with experience in scientific data management and applied AI. The successful candidate will undertake the following tasks:
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Design and operate scalable workflows for the ingestion, integration, deduplication and harmonisation of heterogeneous environmental observation and research data, including traceable provenance, metadata enrichment and semantic annotation
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Develop and evaluate hybrid QA/QC methods combining established rule-based and statistical procedures with machine-learning approaches for anomaly detection, gap filling, sensor-drift detection and uncertainty-aware quality assessment
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Benchmark and evaluate AI-enabled QA/QC methods against established approaches using heterogeneous environmental and sensor-based time-series datasets, with particular emphasis on robustness, explainability and transferability across data sources and domains
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Transform research prototypes into tested, reproducible and maintainable data pipelines and services suitable for continuous data ingestion and operational use, including contributions to tools such as SaQC
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Prepare curated training and evaluation datasets and contribute to the assessment and adaptation of environmental and cross-domain foundation models
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Collaborate with environmental researchers, data managers, software engineers and international project partners, and contribute to technical documentation, reusable guidelines, training materials and scientific publications
We offer
- The freedom to master even the most demanding challenges between basic research and practical application
- The chance to work in interdisciplinary, international teams and benefit from a variety of perspectives
- Firstclass integration into national and international research networks to work together on global challenges
- Excellent research infrastructure and research data management to optimally support your work
- Flexible working hours and a wide range of options for balancing work and care responsibilities through our family office
- Competent support and advice for international colleagues arriving at the UFZ from the 'International Office'
- Special annual payment, capital-forming benefits and subsidised Germany Job Ticket
- A workplace in a vibrant region with a high life quality and social and cultural diversity
Your profile
- A university degree, preferably at Master’s or PhD level, in Data Sciences, Computer Sciences, Environmental Informatics, Geoinformatics, Environmental Sciences, or a related field
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Strong programming skills in Python or R and experience with established data-science and machine-learning libraries
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Experience in one or more of the following areas: time-series analysis, anomaly detection, data imputation, uncertainty quantification, machine learning or AI-enabled data analysis
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Experience with environmental, ecological, geoscientific, sensor-based or similarly heterogeneous scientific datasets
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Experience in developing reproducible data-processing workflows, including version control, testing and collaborative software development
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Familiarity with FAIR data principles, metadata standards, semantic technologies, APIs or interoperable research data infrastructures is an advantage
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Highly welcome: Experiences with and/or connections to EOSC
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Ability to work independently and collaboratively in an interdisciplinary and international environment
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Very good communication skills in English and German
