VITO - Software Engineer - Earth Observation Services

The Environmental Intelligence unit at Vito processes petabytes of Earth Observation (Eo) data. We specialize in extracting reliable, actionable information from vast amounts of satellite imagery for customers worldwide. Within this unit, the Copernicus Services team designs, builds and operates end-to-end Eo processing chains for vegetation, land cover and agriculture monitoring. We deliver robust, 24/7 operational services to European and international partners such as Ecmwf, EEA, ESA, Eumetsat, Fao and JRC. To strengthen our development capacity, we are looking for an experienced and highly motivated Senior Software Engineer.

Your role at VITO

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will play a key role in the evolution of our operational Eo services. You will participate in

• Evolving and hardening our operational Eo processing systems
• Modernizing our stack with cloud-native, scalable architectures
• Leveraging AI-assisted development tools to increase quality, velocity and maintainability

You will work in an agile team of solution architects, developers, Eo scientists and operations engineers, helping bridge R&D prototypes into stable, maintainable operational services. You'll join a talented, dedicated team working in a fast-paced international environment, developing added value products on cutting edge technologies that support public authorities, industry, research and society at large.

Key responsibilities

• Develop efficient services, algorithms and data processing workflows for Eo satellite products
• Translate prototypes and proof‑of‑concepts into robust, production‑grade components
• Deliver clean, maintainable and well‑documented code, primarily in Python
• Implement MicroServices and APIs that integrate seamlessly with our processing platforms
• Take shared responsibility for operational services, including incident analysis, performance optimisation and reliability improvements
• Use AI‑assisted coding tools to improve efficiency and code quality
• Ensure solid automated test coverage (unit, integration, regression tests)
• Collaborate closely with architects, product owners and Eo experts to refine requirements and define technical designs
• Provide 3rd‑line support for customer issues and service anomalies
• Contribute to team-wide decisions on architecture, tools, coding standards and best practices

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field with at least 5 years of professional experience.
• Strong proficiency in Python and object-oriented programming.
• Proven experience in professional software engineering within an Agile environment
• Experience working in DevOps-oriented environments (infrastructure, monitoring, automation)
• Experience with CI/CD and testing frameworks
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools
• Experience in cloud-native deployments (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes, cloud providers) is a plus
• Experience with large-scale data processing (e.g. Apache Spark) is a plus
• Affinity with Earth Observation, geospatial data or scientific data processing is a plus
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, with a mindset of continuous learning in both software engineering and Eo domains
• Ability to work independently toward clear outcomes, both individually and as part of a team.