DATA ENGINEER (Data Science & Big Data Analytics)

Job: Researcher
Department: Data Science & Big Data Analytics
Location: Barcelona (Spain)
Sector: Internet and technology
Vacancies: 1
Discipline: R&D
Work modality: Hybrid

EURECAT

Eurecat is the second Research & Technology Organisation in Spain and one of the largest applied research and technology transfer organisation in Southern

Europe. It brings together the experience of more than 800 professionals who generate an annual turnover of 69 million euros and provides services to more than 2,000 companies. Eurecat integrates advanced digital capabilities and experience in biotechnology, industry and sustainability and collaborates with industry in R+D+I activities and projects, offering advanced scientific and technological services and specialized knowledge to respond effectively to the technological needs of very different business sectors, accelerating innovation, reducing both risks and spendings on scientific and technological infrastructures. The technology center participates in more than 200 large national and international consortium projects of high strategic R&I, has 230 patents and 10 spin-offs. Eurecat has eleven centers in Catalonia and presence in Madrid, Malaga and Chile.

Job description

You will join the Big Data & Data Science unit, a diverse team covering areas as varied as Computational Social Science, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Trustworthy AI. We are looking for an intelligent and curious data engineer to help us translate applied research into tangible products and prototypes, working on real European research projects alongside researchers, software engineers, and project managers.

FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE JOB:

Design, build, and maintain data pipelines (batch and streaming) that ingest data from heterogeneous sources into data lakes and warehouses, including metadata and lineage tracking.
Contribute to the development of federated query and discovery systems over distributed datasets (UNCAN.eu), working with engines such as Trino and integrating query optimizers compliant with privacy requirements.
Contribute to the deployment of European data spaces (DeployEMDS) using standard building blocks from IDSA, Gaia-X, and FIWARE, including data catalogues, brokers, and connectors.
Build and maintain orchestration workflows using Airflow or Dagster, following software engineering best practices (tests, code review, CI/CD).
Package and deploy services using Docker and Docker Compose or similar
Support Machine Learning projects with data storage, serving, and versioning infrastructure (object storage, SQL/NoSQL databases, feature stores).
Collaborate on multi-cloud and on-premise deployments (e.g. Hetzner, Azure, bare metal) and contribute to infrastructure-as-code practices.
Support the preparation of technical sections in EU-funded project proposals (Horizon Europe and similar), and contribute to scientific dissemination (papers, prototypes, demos).

Requirements

Studies

MSc in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or related technical field. A PhD or specialised Master's will be highly valued.

Experience

At least 2 years of professional experience as a Data Engineer or in a closely related role

Technical skills

Strong Python proficiency, including modern tooling for clean code (type hints, linters/formatters such as Ruff, testing with pytest).
Solid SQL skills and experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL)
Experience with at least one NoSQL or document database (Redis, Elasticsearch, or similar)
Experience building ETL/ELT data pipelines (Airflow, Dagster or similar)
Working knowledge of object storage (S3, MinIO) and common serialization formats (Parquet, JSONL, Avro, BSON).
Comfort on Linux and with the command line
Docker and Docker Compose for packaging and local development
Git and CI/CD workflows (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or similar)
Understanding of batch vs. streaming paradigms and event-driven architectures
Understanding of the difference between Data Lake and Data Warehouse architectures, and when to use each.

Languages

Excellent written and spoken English
Knowledge of Catalan and/or Spanish is a plus

Nice-to-have

Experience with distributed query engines (Trino, Presto, Dremio) and the concept of federated queries over heterogeneous data sources.
Familiarity with European data spaces initiatives: IDSA, Gaia-X, FIWARE, DSSC, Eclipse Dataspace Components; data catalogues (CKAN), brokers, and connectors.
Big Data ecosystem: Apache Spark, Flink, Kafka, RabbitMQ, Hadoop
Kubernetes and Helm for production deployments
Infrastructure as Code with Terraform, Ansible, or similar
Observability stacks: OpenTelemetry, Prometheus + Grafana, Loki, or equivalents
Experience with cloud providers (Azure, AWS, GCP, Hetzner): serverless functions, managed storage, IAM.
Graph databases (Neo4j) or time-series databases
Machine Learning fundamentals and familiarity with ML lifecycle tooling (MLflow, feature stores, model versioning).
Concurrency and backend knowledge: async programming, multithreading, actor model, message-driven systems.
Additional programming languages: Java, Scala, Go, or Rust
Participation in EU-funded research projects (Horizon Europe, Digital Europe) or scientific publications / conference presentations.
Relevant certifications (cloud providers, Kubernetes CKA/CKAD, data platforms)

WHAT CAN EURECAT OFFER YOU?  

Permanent contract. 
Hybrid work (home office/ work in the office). 
Flexible Schedule. 
Shorter workday on Friday and Summer Schedule. 
Flexible remuneration package (health insurance, transport, lunch, studies - training and kindergarten). 
Eurecat employees can join the Eurecat Academy courses. 
Language courses (English, Catalan and Spanish).

Job: Researcher
Department: Data Science & Big Data Analytics
Location: Barcelona (Spain)
Sector: Internet and technology
Vacancies: 1
Discipline: R&D
Work modality: Hybrid

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