Research Engineer on atmospheric composition forecasts and reanalyses (RE2)

• Education
  • A university degree (Master's) in atmospheric sciences, physics, computer science, engineering, mathematics or related disciplines. A PhD in a related field will be valued.
• Essential Knowledge and Professional Experience
  • At least 2 years of professional experience in operational atmospheric composition forecasting.
  • Demonstrated experience coordinating technical activities and the work of several contributors: planning, tracking tasks and milestones, and delivering to deadline.
  • Experience in international collaborative projects, including preparation, reporting and timely delivery of project deliverables, and representing a team in project meetings.
  • Experience working on HPC systems.
  • Working knowledge of Python and/or Fortran, shell scripting and Unix/Linux environments, and of collaborative code development with version control (e.g. Git).
• Additional Knowledge and Professional Experience
  • Experience with observational data processing and model evaluation workflows (in-situ and satellite observations).
  • Experience running numerical models (e.g. atmospheric composition, air quality or weather models).
  • Knowledge of quality assurance procedures for operational services (e.g. Copernicus, WMO).
  • Experience managing HPC allocations and computational resources.
  • Experience delivering training, onboarding or mentoring for team members and external users.
• Competences
  • Strong organizational and coordination skills, with the ability to align several contributors around shared priorities, workflows and documentation practices.
  • Very good interpersonal skills.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including reporting to and negotiating with international project partners.
  • Ability to take initiative, prioritize and work under set deadlines.
  • Ability to work both independently and within a team.

Reference: 446_26_ES_AC_RE2

Job title: Research Engineer on atmospheric composition forecasts and reanalyses (RE2)

We are looking for an experienced and enthusiastic research engineer to join the Atmospheric Composition (AC) group within the Earth Sciences department at the BSC-CNS. The AC group is currently composed of about 50 people among researchers, engineers and students of different nationalities. It aims at better understanding and predicting the spatio-temporal variations of atmospheric pollutants along with their effects upon air quality, weather and climate. This is addressed through the continuous development and application of numerical models over multiple scales, from weather to climate and from global to urban scales.

The AC group develops and maintains its own forecast model MONARCH, which is a coupled meteorological-chemistry model that can be run at global and regional scales to simulate gaseous chemistry and aerosols plus their feedbacks on radiation. MONARCH is also coupled to a data assimilation scheme for gases and aerosols that is used to initialize forecasts or produce reanalyses of the atmospheric composition. The AC group operates several operational forecasting systems in the framework of the World Meteorological Organization Sand and Dust Storm Advisory System (SDS-WAS, https://dust.aemet.es), the Copernicus atmospheric monitoring services (CAMS, https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu), the Spanish air quality forecasting system CALIOPE (https://caliope.bsc.es), and the International Cooperative for Aerosols Predictions (ICAP).

The successful candidate will join the Data Assimilation Forecasting and Application team of the AC group and will play a key coordinating role in the production and continuous improvement of the team's operational forecasting and reanalysis systems. The activities will be carried out mainly in the framework of the Copernicus CAMS2_40bis international project, with contributions to the CAMS2_82bis project and to the activities of the Barcelona Dust Regional Center (BDRC).

The candidate will work in a highly collaborative environment, with tight links with researchers and engineers in the AC group. The candidate will have the opportunity to follow multiple training activities, including those aimed at improving coding and data analysis, project writing abilities, or project management. All this will be implemented via the formal courses organized by the Education and Training team and Human Resources, and the participation in the regular seminars organized by the department.

• Manage the team's technical activities within CAMS2_40bis and its contributions to CAMS2_82bis and the BDRC, including planning, follow-up of tasks and milestones, and reporting.
• Coordinate the preparation and timely delivery of project deliverables, and represent the team in international project meetings.
• Coordinate the upgrades of the production systems: define and evaluate target model configurations, organize the e-suite experiments, and ensure successful operational deployments.
• Coordinate the production of atmospheric composition reanalyses, from planning and set-up to monitoring, validation and dissemination.
• Oversee the overall quality assurance of the forecast and reanalysis products, including routine evaluation against in-situ and satellite observations.
• Improve the organization and coordination of the researchers and engineers contributing to developments and production, promoting common workflows, documentation and best practices.
• Manage the HPC resources related to production, including allocation requests, usage planning and monitoring.

• 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: 16/10/2026