Team Leader - Workflow Design and Integration, Bonn

Your role

We are seeking a Team Leader (A3) for the Workflow Design and Integration Team, which sits at the heart of ECMWF’s operational forecasting systems. The team plays a crucial role in delivering ECMWF’s operational weather, environmental and climate services by ensuring that scientific and technical advances are integrated safely and efficiently into production.

This is a key operational, technical and leadership role at the intersection of science, software engineering, high-performance computing, machine learning and 24/7 operational delivery. You will provide technical and people leadership for the team responsible for ensuring that ECMWF’s prediction systems and services run reliably in production, while improving and modernising their workflows and integrating changes safely into operations.

The role spans the operational implementation of upgrades to ECMWF’s Integrated Forecasting System and Artificial Intelligence Forecasting System, Copernicus and Destination Earth production workflows, and the adaptation of operational suites to new and upgraded computing environments.

As Team Leader, you will set direction and priorities, develop the team and work closely with colleagues across ECMWF’s Forecasts and Services, Research and Computing Departments. The role requires hands-on technical credibility and practical leadership to manage dependencies, identify operational risks early and enable ECMWF to innovate quickly while protecting the reliability, traceability and quality of its operational systems and services.

About the Workflow Design and Integration Team

The Workflow Design and Integration Team, currently encompassing 10 staff, is part of the Production Section in ECMWF’s Forecasts and Services Department. It co-designs, integrates, tests and supports the workflows that allow ECMWF’s prediction systems and environmental and climate services to run reliably in operational production.

The team plays an important role as operational forecasting moves towards a more diverse mix of physics-based and data-driven systems, new computing environments and more complex data flows. These developments require disciplined workflow design, reliable orchestration, clear release processes and close coordination across ECMWF.

The team ensures that input data, model execution, post-processing, archiving, monitoring and dissemination steps are aligned and robust. It oversees workflows used to produce operational weather forecasts from medium-range to seasonal timescales, as well as machine-learning-enabled forecasts, Copernicus climate reanalyses and atmospheric composition services and Destination Earth Digital Twins. It also monitors the performance of operational suites, provides second-line support when problems are escalated by ECMWF’s operators, and contributes to change, configuration, release and incident-management processes.

Working jointly with colleagues in research, development and operations, the team modernises workflow design and integrates scientific and technical developments safely into production. It co-owns and evolves the end-to-end Research-to-Operations process, helping to reduce technical barriers and ensure appropriate optimisation, reliability, testing, documentation and operational readiness. An important direction of travel is closer alignment of the workflows, configuration and tooling used in research and operations: co-designed so that advances flow into production with less friction and lower risk.

Your responsibilities

As Team Leader, you will:

Lead, manage and motivate the Workflow Design and Integration Team by setting objectives and priorities, supporting effective delivery, and coaching and developing team membersSet direction for the design, testing, implementation and support of ECMWF’s operational forecasts and data-generation workflows, ensuring they run reliably and continue to improveOversee the performance of operational suites and the resolution of problems, including effective second-line support and on-call arrangements where requiredLead the team’s contribution to the end-to-end Research-to-Operations (R2O) process, co-owned with the Research Department, ensuring developments are tested, documented and ready for operationsOversee the team’s contribution to change, configuration, release and incident management, promoting strong engineering practicesReport to and support the Head of Production Section in the team’s area of responsibility; contribute to planning, risk and resource management; communicate upcoming changes; and represent the team within ECMWF and externally, particularly with Member and Co-operating States

What we are looking for

We are looking for someone who combines deep technical expertise with practical, supportive leadership. You will be comfortable working with scientists, software engineers and operational colleagues and leading experts by setting clear direction, removing obstacles and enabling them to deliver.

You will bring:

A clear and supportive leadership style, with the ability to make decisions, delegate effectively and develop team membersAbility to lead an established team, promoting modern ways of working and continuous improvement, while building support and bringing people with youExcellent judgement in balancing operational reliability, technical quality, innovation and delivery pressureStrong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a practical approach to continuous improvementThe ability to build trust across scientific, software engineering and operational communities and keep dependencies visibleStrong communication and organisational skills, with the flexibility and resilience to manage changing priorities, operational issues and tight deadlines

Your profile

Education

An advanced university degree, EQF Level 7 or above, or equivalent professional experience, in computer science, software engineering, physics, mathematics, meteorology, Earth-system science or another relevant discipline.

Essential experience and knowledge

Experience leading or coordinating technical work in a complex software, scientific computing or operational environment,Experience in managing people or a demonstrated readiness to take on a formal team leadership and people management roleExperience in software development, workflow management or operational systems in a UNIX/Linux environmentStrong understanding of operational workflows, including software integration, scheduling, data-processing pipelines, archiving, post-processing, monitoring or disseminationGood knowledge of software engineering practices, including version control, code review, testing and documentation, and familiarity with Python or another relevant programming language

Desirable experience and knowledge

Experience with high-performance computing, distributed applications, large-scale scientific software, operational performance and reliability, or change, configuration, release and incident managementKnowledge of operational forecasting, numerical weather prediction, Earth-system or environmental services, Copernicus, Destination Earth or machine-learning-enabled forecasting workflows, including relevant approaches to reproducibility, model versioning, workflow orchestration or MLOps

Languages

Candidates must be able to work effectively in English. A good knowledge of one of the Centre’s other working languages (French or German) is an advantage.

If you feel that you have the motivation and many of the skills for this role but don't meet precisely all of the criteria listed above, we still encourage you to apply.

About ECMWF

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is a world leader in Numerical Weather Predictions providing high-quality data for weather forecasts and environmental monitoring. As an intergovernmental organisation we collaborate internationally to serve our members and the wider community with global weather predictions, data and training activities that are critical to contribute to safe and thriving societies.

The success of our activities depends on the funding and partnerships of our 35 Member and Co-operating States who provide the support and direction of our work. Our talented staff together with the international scientific community, and our powerful supercomputing capabilities, are the core of a 24/7 research and operational centre with a focus on medium and long-range predictions. We also hold one of the largest meteorological data archives in the world.

Our vision: World-leading monitoring and predictions of the Earth system enabled by cutting-edge physical, computational and data science, resulting from a close collaboration between ECMWF and the members of the European Meteorological Infrastructure, will contribute to a safe and thriving society

Our mission: Deliver global numerical weather predictions focusing on the medium-range and monitoring of the Earth system to and with our Member States

In addition, ECMWF has established a strong partnership with the European Union and has been entrusted with the implementation and operation of the Destination Earth initiative and the Climate Change and Atmosphere Monitoring Services of the Copernicus Programme, as well as being a contributor to the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. Other areas of work include High Performance Computing and the development of digital tools that enable ECMWF to extend provision of data and products covering weather, climate, air quality, fire and flood prediction and monitoring.

ECMWF is a multi-site organisation, with its headquarters in Reading, UK, a data centre in Bologna, Italy, and a large presence in Bonn, Germany as a central location for our EU-related activities. ECMWF is internationally recognised as the voice of expertise in numerical weather predictions for forecasts and climate science.

About Copernicus copernicus.eu
About Destination Earth destine.ecmwf.int

Other information

Grade remuneration: The successful candidates will be recruited according to the scales of the Co-ordinated Organisations. In addition to basic salary, ECMWF also offers an attractive benefits package. Information about working with us and full details of salary scales and allowances are available on the ECMWF website at:

Starting date: asap

Location: Reading, UK or Bonn, Germany (Candidates are expected to relocate to the duty station)

Remote work: As a multi-site organisation, ECMWF has adopted a hybrid organisation model which allows flexibility to staff to mix office working and teleworking. We allow for remote work 10 days/month away from the office, including up to 80 days/year away from the duty station country (within the area of our member states and co-operating states).

Interviews by videoconference (MS Teams) will be conducted in English and are expected to take place approximately a month after the closing date.

Successful applicants and members of their family forming part of their households will be exempt from immigration restrictions.

If you require any special accommodations in order to participate fully in our recruitment process, please let us know. To contact the ECMWF Recruitment Team, please email [email protected].

Who can apply

Applicants are invited to complete the online application form by clicking on the apply button below.

At ECMWF, we consider an inclusive environment as key for our success. We are dedicated to ensuring a workplace that embraces diversity and provides equal opportunities for all, without distinction as to race, gender, age, marital status, social status, disability, sexual orientation, religion, personality, ethnicity and culture. We value the benefits derived from a diverse workforce and are committed to having staff that reflect the diversity of the countries that are part of our community, in an environment that nurtures equality and inclusion.

Applications are invited from nationals from ECMWF Member States and Co-operating States.

ECMWF Member and Co-operating States are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

In these exceptional times, we also welcome applications from Ukrainian nationals for this vacancy (note: ECMWF will not be able to assist with leaving the country). Applications from nationals from other countries may be considered in exceptional cases.