Research Engineer - Operational air quality forecast (RE1-RE2)

Job Reference

399_26_ES_CES_RE2

Position

Research Engineer - Operational air quality forecast (RE1-RE2)

Closing Date

Sunday, 06 September, 2026

Reference: 399_26_ES_CES_RE2

Job title: Research Engineer - Operational air quality forecast (RE1-RE2)

About BSC

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) is the leading supercomputing center in Spain. It houses MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, was a founding and hosting member of the former European HPC infrastructure PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and is now hosting entity for EuroHPC JU, the Joint Undertaking that leads large-scale investments and HPC provision in Europe. The mission of BSC is to research, develop and manage information technologies in order to facilitate scientific progress. BSC combines HPC service provision and R&D into both computer and computational science (life, earth and engineering sciences) under one roof, and currently has over 1000 staff from 60 countries.

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We are particularly interested for this role in the strengths and lived experiences of women and underrepresented groups to help us avoid perpetuating biases and oversights in science and IT research. In instances of equal merit, the incorporation of the under-represented sex will be favoured.

We promote Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, fostering an environment where each and every one of us is appreciated for who we are, regardless of our differences.

If you consider that you do not meet all the requirements, we encourage you to continue applying for the job offer. We value diversity of experiences and skills, and you could bring unique perspectives to our team.

Context And Mission

The Earth Sciences Department of the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, led by Prof. Francisco Doblas-Reyes, is one of the most active groups in air quality and atmospheric composition modeling, climate prediction and climate services in Europe.

The group contributes to various forecasting activities. MONARCH is the operational model of the first WMO Regional Specialized Meteorological Center for Atmospheric Sand and Dust Forecast (i.e., the Barcelona Dust Regional Center, https://dust.aemet.es), and contributes to the International Cooperative for Aerosol Prediction (ICAP) and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS, https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu) regional air quality forecasts. The group also develops and maintains the CALIOPE (“CALIdad del aire Operacional Para España”) and CALIOPE-urban air quality systems (https://caliope.bsc.es), which provide high-resolution air quality forecasts over the Iberian Peninsula, Catalonia and Barcelona using the in-house emission model HERMES.

Within the Computational Earth Sciences (CES) group, the selected candidate will be part of the Models and Workflows team to contribute to various forecasting activities carried out in collaboration with the Atmospheric Composition (AC) and the Earth System Services (ESS) groups and will be responsible for maintaining and improving the current operational air quality forecasting systems.

Key Duties

Implementation, execution, and monitoring of atmospheric numerical models (MONARCH, WRF-ARW, CMAQ) in a High-Performance Computing environment.

Interact with computational earth sciences scientists to improve the performance and reliability of the system. This includes communication with HPC user support at BSC.

Interact with atmospheric composition scientists to understand processes and model configuration.

Maintenance of the current operational air quality forecasting systems and development of new features as a result of user interaction.

Requirements

Education

Having a Bachelor in Meteorology, Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related discipline

Having a Master’s degree will be valued.

Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience

Knowledge about the development and execution of scientific applications on parallel computers

Experience with UNIX/LINUX environments

Experience in Python programming and/or scripting languages (bash, …)

Experience in version control in a collaborative environment, including SVN or Git

Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience

Previous experience with NWP or climate modeling and/or operations

Familiarity with scientific workflows on large High Performance Computing (HPC) systems, including parallel programming techniques and workflow-managers

Previous knowledge or experience with continuous integration tools (e.g., Jenkins)

Understanding of HPC computer architecture issues

Previous experience in scientific software and tools (R, Python Numpy and Scipy, …)

Familiarity with coding and documentation best practices and standards will be valued

Competences

Capacity to interact and build strong relations with both Earth and Computer scientists

Ability to take the initiative, prioritize, and work under set deadlines and pressure

Excellent problem-solving skills with a proactive approach

Ability to work both independently and within a team

Capacity to work and communicate in an international and interdisciplinary working environment

Conditions

The position will be located at BSC within the Earth Sciences Department

We offer a full-time contract (35h/week), a good working environment, a highly stimulating environment with state-of-the-art infrastructure, flexible working hours, extensive training plan, restaurant tickets, private health insurance, support to the relocation procedures

Duration: Open-ended contract due to technical and scientific activities linked to the project and budget duration

Holidays: 22 days of holidays + 6 personal days + 24th and 31st of December per our collective agreement

Salary: we offer a competitive salary commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the candidate and according to the cost of living in Barcelona

Starting date: ASAP

Applications procedure and process

All applications must be submitted via the BSC website and contain:

A full CV in English including contact details

A cover/motivation letter with a statement of interest in English, clearly specifying for which specific area and topics the applicant wishes to be considered. Additionally, two references for further contacts must be included. Applications without this document will not be considered.

Development of the recruitment process

The selection will be carried out through a competitive examination system ("Concurso-Oposición"). The recruitment process consists of two phases:

Curriculum Analysis: Evaluation of previous experience and/or scientific history, degree, training, and other professional information relevant to the position. - 40 points

Interview phase: The highest-rated candidates at the curriculum level will be invited to the interview phase, conducted by the corresponding department and Human Resources. In this phase, technical competencies, knowledge, skills, and professional experience related to the position, as well as the required personal competencies, will be evaluated. - 60 points. A minimum of 30 points out of 60 must be obtained to be eligible for the position.

The recruitment panel will be composed of at least three people, ensuring at least 25% representation of women.

In accordance with OTM-R principles, a gender-balanced recruitment panel is formed for each vacancy at the beginning of the process. After reviewing the content of the applications, the panel will begin the interviews, with at least one technical and one administrative interview. At a minimum, a personality questionnaire as well as a technical exercise will be conducted during the process.

The panel will make a final decision, and all individuals who participated in the interview phase will receive feedback with details on the acceptance or rejection of their profile.

At BSC, we seek continuous improvement in our recruitment processes. For any suggestions or comments/complaints about our recruitment processes, please contact recruitment [at] bsc [dot] es.

For more information, please follow this link.

Deadline

The vacancy will remain open until a suitable candidate has been hired. Applications will be regularly reviewed and potential candidates will be contacted.

OTM-R principles for selection processes

BSC-CNS is committed to the principles of the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers of the European Commission and the Open, Transparent and Merit-based Recruitment principles (OTM-R). This is applied for any potential candidate in all our processes, for example by creating gender-balanced recruitment panels and recognizing career breaks etc.

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