As the Lead Software Engineer and Chief Technology Officer, you are responsible for the overall development of the solution. You are an experienced Software Developer with a proven track record and ready help building a new spin off.
VITO, an independent Flemish research organization, is looking for a lead software developer for ENPERAS. ENPERAS is a VITO Spin-off that will commercialize a new developed software. It concerns B2B SAAS application that empowers the customer to assess his product life cycles (LCAs) and to communicate its environmental footprint, or impacts, through Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). With this digitalization we reduce months of consultancy work into a few clicks. It also allows the customer to expand his sales markets and apply eco design according to the European Green Deal guidelines. The company will be located in Antwerp region.
You, Chief Technology Officer, are responsible for the overall development of the solution.
You lead the design, development and testing of the entire software solution.
You are responsible for analysing end user requirements, adapting the application architecture & analysis workflows, and developing improvements and new features to meet these requirements.
You lead the product development and organize the releases and version management.
You will gradually grow towards management of a software development team.
The unit Separation- and Conversion Technology (SCT) develops technologies for the sustainability of production processes in the (bio)chemical sector, replacement of fossil resources by renewable resources as feedstock for the chemical industry, and the treatment of waste streams into high value chemicals. The synthesis of (semi)aromatic polymers derived from renewable resources is currently attracting tremendous interest from both academia and industry, as aromatic compounds are key intermediates in the manufacture of polymers and chemicals. VITO is co-initiator of Biorizon, an industry driven Shared Research Center, focusing on technology development for the production of functionalized biobased aromatics for performance materials, chemicals & coatings. As the leading institute, VITO coordinates the development of lignin derived bioaromatics by its own technology and by collaboration with different technology providers. Lignin is the main source of aromatic bio-based molecules. Various phenols derivatives with a variety of chemical structures can be obtained from lignin deconstruction combined with advanced membrane separation techniques. Up to now, VITO has developed a strong expertise in the valorization of biomass through conversion of lignocellulose into value-added lignin fragments and bio-aromatic derivatives. Our next goal is to develop IP and demonstrate how these new building blocks could be polymerized into value-added products. Depending on the phenol substrates obtained from the lignin separation processes, different chemical modifications and polymerization pathways will be envisaged and developed, leading to (semi)aromatic polymers covering a wide range of industrial applications. We are looking to recruit one PhD graduate for a senior polymer chemist to work in our lignin-derived polymers program.
The main tasks of the candidate will be to: • Synthesize polymerizable synthons derived from lignin fragments; • Design co-polymers from these functionalized lignin monomers; • Contribute to the structure-properties characterization of the obtained materials.
Are you interested in new, sustainable processes and are you particularly curious about the economic feasibility and environmental impact of these processes? Then performing a techno-economic analysis is for you. With new technologies, there are many uncertainties about which options are most promising. Is the investment cost decisive or should we focus on energy reduction or increase the productivity? Which research targets need to be met? Our team tries to formulate answers, in close collaboration with technology-developers, to these questions and looks for the most promising value chains with the use of our techno-economic analysis. We also extend these analysis with life cycle analysis (LCA) to have a good view on the environmental impact.
In a techno-economic analysis we examine the processes simultaneously from a technical and economic point of view – and by extension from an environmental point of view. We do this analysis based on desktop research and through intensive communication with project developers and external experts.
With this position we want to strengthen our team with a colleague who is fascinated by technological innovations, economic feasibility and environmental impact and who rather develops a helicopter view of the value chain instead of specializing him/herself in specific processes.
We offer with this vacancy a challenging job where a diversity of processes and value chains are evaluated from a broad, multidisciplinary perspective with our internally developed techno-economic analysis method.
Specific job content:
You combine desktop research with intensive communication with internal and external experts and you evaluate, communicate and report results to our clients (Flemish and European) and the academic world (i.e. via scientific publications and conferences).
You take into account the valorization potential of the technologies to provide relevant information, solutions, advice, processes or products for SMEs, governments and industry;
You carry out (inter)national projects with focus on the further extension of our internally developed techno-economic analysis method;
You work closely together in a team;
In the long term you will autonomously look for new research projects and processes for the further development of our techno-economic analysis method. You contribute to proposals and you look for opportunities to finance proposals.
The Built Environment team at VITO/EnergyVille assesses the environmental impact of construction materials, elements, buildings and energy technologies. We advise industry and authorities about innovative solutions and alternative production and building methods. We are currently seeking an expert in life cycle analysis (LCA) to strengthen our team.
In this role, you will act as an expert for funded research projects (such as H2020), as well as consultancy assignments for industry or governments.
You will bring innovation to our field of expertise by contributing and developing new methods and expertise in the circular economy and circular construction, digitalisation options and innovative data strategies. In this regard, you will make tangible contributions to the development of innovative tools and solutions that meet current and future client needs.
Along with colleagues, you will monitor progress achieved by the in-house project team and will ensure that this is in alignment with the relevant external partners. You will share the results with the client and will be the external face of those projects at stakeholder forums and public events.
You will be responsible for partnerships within national and European consortia, and you will expand your network to include Belgian and European authorities and industrial partners.
You will also play a role in the acquisition of projects and in writing tenders and project proposals.
As a researcher you will contribute to the Flemish, European and international air quality policy.
You develop databases and emission models that describe the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere.
You develop and configure models that simulate and predict the presence and dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere.
These models are used to support the environmental policy of Flemish and foreign governments.
Next to the development and configuration of the models, you are responsible for the analysis of the model results and reporting to the customer or end user. Processing and visualization of data is an important aspect.
Together with your fellow researchers and IT, you integrate your knowledge and expertise in projects, report the results and publish in scientific journals.
R&D PROFESSIONAL RECYCLING AND SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS
Mol
R&D & Engineering
Description:
As VITO, we have clear ambitions to further strengthen our research programme ‘Sustainable Materials Management’. We strive towards a more circular economy, by developing zero-waste solutions to sustainably transform residues into resources and products. One of our core research activities is the development of innovative processes to develop sustainable construction materials (SCMs, fine sand, aggregates,….) from industrial residues (slags, ashes, sludges….). In our vision, it is key to find safe and added-value applications for the voluminous matrix that remains after the extraction of valuable metals and/or minerals from industrial residues. Applications as cement, fine and coarse aggregate of both high technical and environmental quality do not only provide a stable and large volume market, but also add value to mineral waste streams, instead of landfilling these.
We are looking for an experienced researcher to strengthen this visionary research track. As a researcher, you will explore the relationships between the raw material properties, the processing steps and the technical/environmental quality of the construction materials in relation to construction applications. As an example, you will work on the activation of sludges (calcination) to produce supplementary cementitious materials and the granulation of processed tailings to produce fine sand or aggregates.
You are responsible for the acquisition, the execution and the coordination of applied scientific research projects. As a VITO expert in this field, you present results at (inter)national for a and you publish these in peer reviewed journals. You can rely on a strong network of relevant partners and you are eager to find opportunities for setting up concrete (demo) projects with industrial partners.
As a researcher you will contribute to climate-robust developments and climate adaptation for different sectors at the Flemish, European and international level in support of environmental and climate policy:
You develop “climate services” for governments, (inter)national organizations and companies;
You process large amounts of climate data into customer-oriented applications;
You develop models to study the climate and the impact of climate change and help determine the impact of adaptation measures for industry, health, agriculture, ecosystems and society;
Besides the development of the models, you are responsible for the analysis of the model results and the reporting to the customer or end user;
Together with your fellow researchers you integrate your knowledge and expertise in projects, report the results and publish in scientific journals.
As Product Manager you will coordinate the integration of our research results into Microsoft Azure solutions. Therefore you develop a strategy and implementation plan linked to our research roadmaps, with a focus on flexibility solutions and demand side management in the context of smart grids.
You are part of the ‘Strategic Energy Research Roadmaps and Valorization’ team that has a place in the VITO Energy Technology Business Unit which is integrated in EnergyVille (www.energyville.be).
You manage projects and people for the successful implementation and valorization of initially low TRL flexibility control algorithms for different applications by converting them to higher TRL and integrating them into our FlexHarvester platform (MS Azure platform).
You manage and expand our “SmarThor” Azure data platform as a successful corner stone of our living lab at Thor park.
You are the bridge between research applications, a commercial IT platform and our eco-system of potential customers and partners.
You actively interact with researchers to detect, analyze and integrate internal research opportunities into MS Azure solutions and you connect these to external business needs by building up and maintaining an external network of potential partners and customers.
You inspire and motivate people across different projects and teams to actively contribute to the successful implementation of MS Azure solutions with societal and technological impact on international level.
You will be full time employed as an R&D expert & project manager in projects related to monitoring of agricultural resources. These will be projects for institutional clients like the European Commission, the European Space Agency, or the UN-FAO, but also for commercial clients active in the agro-food industry.
You act with a high degree of independency and in in close collaboration with your internal and external team members.
You report on the progress of your work to the team leader of the VITO agriculture team. Outside VITO you will communicate on your work in meetings with clients or partners.
You operate in an international setting and take initiative to liaise with project partners of different consortia.
Next to the running projects you search for new projects, establish strong partnerships and compile proposals/offers.
As a scientist there is an opportunity to develop big data skills and integrated analysis combining different spatio-temporal datasets stemming from remote sensing, GIS and agricultural statistics.
As a project manager there is the opportunity to grow as a project leader of large international projects.
You will be member of a team that focuses on supply chain optimization. The team provides supply chain decision support as a service towards public and private clients, via research projects as well as commercial consultancy. To support this activity the team developed MooV, our proprietary linear programming optimization model. More on: https://moov.vito.be/en.
As operations research developer you will extend, improve and apply MooV in close collaboration with our fellow senior developer.
You translate client supply chain optimization requirements into mathematical logics.
You program these logics into the MooV model tailoring it to meet the client’s requirements.
You test and validate the model’s results in relation to the client’s requirements.
You report the results in a (non-technical) decision support format.
Our team is embedded in VITO which holds the vision to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable world. As a MooV team we believe supply chain optimization is an essential part to make that happen. Interested? Check below if you match the profile that we are looking for this position.
SENIOR EXPERT DECENTRALIZED FLEXIBILITY INTEGRATION AND MARKET DESIGN
Genk
R&D & Engineering
Description:
You will be involved in several research and knowledge-intensive consultancy projects as an expert on decentralized flexibility integration and market design, including energy communities, local markets, innovative local flexibility services, and network tariff design. Your drive is to use your expertise to help the stakeholders (utilities, regulators, system operators,…) in the decision making process. You will be based in VITO/EnergyVille in Thor Park Genk, Belgium.
Your responsibilities
You are involved in several research and knowledge-intensive consultancy projects as an expert team member, possibly as a task or project leader within your area of expertise.
You formulate policy and strategy advice to relevant stakeholders including regulators, policymakers, system operators and industry based on your research.
You communicate research and project results in clear and high-quality reports, scientific papers and presentations.
You actively extend your network and to expand the team’s portfolio of knowledge-intensive consultancy projects within your area of expertise or to improve scientific excellence and visibility of the team.
SENIOR R&D PROFESSIONAL ENERGY MARKETS AND PRODUCT OWNER ELECTRICITY MARKET SIMULATOR
Genk
R&D & Engineering
Description:
You will be involved in several research and knowledge-intensive consultancy projects as an expert on energy market (clearing) modelling and assessment of energy markets. The markets in scope cover electricity markets extended to multi-carrier markets for gas and heat: from day-ahead markets to real-time balancing including system services (flexibility). You will coordinate the development of the energy market clearing simulator in Python and Julia over different projects. You will be based in VITO/EnergyVille in Thor Park Genk, Belgium.
Your responsibilities
In the team of ‘Energy Markets’ you will be the expert on electricity market design and modelling.
You are responsible for the electricity market clearing software and manage its development and roadmap. You are responsible for the definition of priorities of functionalities to be implemented. In cooperation with a business developer, you are able to derive and implement market-ready solutions and/or products from this software toolbox.
You supervise colleagues in tasks related to the electricity market simulator development.
You elaborate your expertise in the field of electricity market design and modelling, taking into account technical, economic, societal and regulatory aspects.
You communicate research and project results in clear and high-quality reports, scientific papers and presentations.
You actively extend your network to improve scientific excellence and to expand the team’s portfolio of knowledge-intensive consultancy projects within your area of expertise.
As a software engineer you work on projects situated in a context of Belgian space programs, the European space Agency and the European Commission. You are a driver in an ecosystem of earth observation and big data platforms and ensure agile development of worklows within the existing testing and automation frameworks to performant operational services.
You will work within an agile scrum team of solution architects, software developers and operation engineers. Together you will be responsible for development, test automation and the maintenance of satellite data processing systems. You execute the internal vision and roadmap on big data and processing platforms.
You'll become part of a talented, dedicated team working in a fast-paced, challenging international environment. We thrive to develop cutting edge technologies that will be used in applications and services by a broad public, industry, the public sector and universities.
The Remote Sensing unit of VITO processes petabytes of earth observation data. We primarily specialise in Big Data analysis with the use of machine learning and deep learning techniques in the application workflows. That is our passion: the extraction of information from the vast amounts of incoming images. Information required by our clients. Our extensive group of clients can be found within the domains of land use, civil infrastructure, agriculture, forestry, water management, heritage and ecological development.
Your responsibilities:
Develop efficient algorithms, models and proof of concepts
Create production software components, analytics applications and data visualization.
Develop CI system to ensure the system meets business requirements
Work together with architects, subject matter experts and product owners
Provide support on customer issues
Together with the team, take responsibility over the operational platforms
As a dynamic and highly motivated Project Manager you will manage international projects with the European Commission and the European Space Agency as most important stakeholders.
You are the driver in an ecosystem of remote sensing data and platforms and ensure project execution from proposal to final review meeting. You work within a team of software developers and operation engineers. Together with the team you translate the project requirements in an efficient and operational service. You scan the market for opportunities to contribute to and to execute the internal vision and roadmap on Copernicus services.
You'll become part of a talented, dedicated team working in a fast-paced, challenging international environment. We thrive to develop added value products on cutting edge technologies that will be used by a broad public, industry, the public sector and universities.
The Remote Sensing unit of VITO processes petabytes of Earth Observation data. We specialize in the extraction of information from the vast amounts of incoming images. Information required by our customers worldwide. Our extensive group of customers can be found within the domains of land use, civil infrastructure, agriculture, forestry, water management, heritage and ecological development.
Your responsibilities:
Project management in its broad context: Responsible for tasks, deliverables, risk assessment and mitigation, project administration, documentation within time and within budget. This in close cooperation with international partner companies and institutions. Reporting towards management and customers.
Representation of your project portfolio on international, mostly scientific conferences
Translation of project opportunities to actual proposals.
Planning of necessary resources including subcontractors
Keep track of a strong user-oriented approach
Team coaching: setting project strategy and keeping the team aligned to the goal
Continuous improvement in the project and IT development processes
Stay on the leading edge of the evolving remote sensing and IT world
With its research program 'Sustainable Health', VITO is fully committed to supporting social transitions to a more preventive health system. The detection of diseases at an early stage of development offers many advantages, such as a timely and specific treatment with considerable cost savings and the possibility of tracing the cause of a disease. VITO focuses on the development of biomolecular analytical technologies and the selection of biomarkers for health professionals, the pharmaceutical and biotech industry to support progress in the field of early diagnostics. Would you, as a junior R&D researcher, like to strengthen our team around nanobiotechnology?
As a junior researcher, you are responsible for the practical implementation of several projects in the field of in vitro diagnostics. For this you will work closely together with lab technicians and other researchers in your team.
Specifically, you work on the development and improvement of analytical technologies for separation and detection of molecular biomarkers in liquid biopsies for lab-on-chip and point-of-care applications (miniaturization, ease of use, competitive technical performance, ...).
You will generate customer-oriented solutions together with your team within agreed time and budget limits. You are responsible for the critical analysis of the results and you support the interpretation and communication of the data to the various project partners. You translate the research results into useful advice for the project manager, colleagues and the customer.
Based on your knowledge and expertise, you contribute to the writing of offers and project proposals for the recruitment of projects.
You present research and project results at (inter)national forums and ensure knowledge transfer to team members.
You take the initiative to bundle these results in scientific articles and patents.
EnergyVille is a collaboration between the Belgian research partners KU Leuven, VITO, imec and UHasselt in the fields of sustainable energy and intelligent energy systems.
For EnergyVille, VITO is looking for a driven Azure Software Architect/Developer to strengthen the research group Algorithms, Models, and Optimization (AMO). Our researchers and developers focus on discovering, leveraging, and valorizing flexibility in energy supply and demand as a key to increasing the use of renewable energy sources. They develop and implement advanced, data- and model-driven control algorithms and software systems for energy devices, energy management systems, and energy markets. More information: www.energyville.be
Interest to contribute? Read on!
You work in a team of researchers advancing mathematical, model based, decentralized, and/or data driven techniques that enable a higher share of renewables and developing novel solutions for the practical challenges within the energy infrastructure. You contribute actively to the team with your software development and software architecture expertise and overall resourcefulness.
You interface with researchers in the domains of electrical grids, electrical storage, thermal energy systems, energy markets, e-mobility, etc., and provide performant and practical solutions for their challenges.
You interact with internal and external software development partners, and from your expertise are capable of challenging and negotiating the proposed solutions.
You, together with your colleagues, coach and assist researchers in the definition of software requirements, software processes and work out solutions that comply with their needs.
You translate requirements into a good software architecture, taking into account scalability, security, stability, flexibility, and cost.
You explain, advice on and defend the defined solutions as well as long term strategies to team and project leaders, advisory board members, and upper management. You aid in the development of PaaS and/or on-premise solutions together with software developers and infrastructure engineers.
You interact with software architects and developers of other VITO departments to find synergies and possible joint efforts.
In time you may take on a technical coordinating role.
EnergyVille is a collaboration between the Belgian research partners KU Leuven, VITO, imec and UHasselt in the fields of sustainable energy and intelligent energy systems.
For EnergyVille, VITO is looking for a driven Software Developer for Azure solutions/ IOT specialist to strengthen the research group Algorithms, Models, and Optimization (AMO). Our researchers and developers focus on discovering, leveraging, and valorizing flexibility in energy supply and demand as a key to increasing the use of renewable energy sources. They develop and implement advanced, data- and model-driven control algorithms and software systems for energy devices, energy management systems, and energy markets. More information: www.energyville.be
Interested to contribute? Read on!
You contribute actively to the team with your software development expertise, IT administration skills, and overall resourcefulness.
You interface with researchers in the domain of electrical grids, electrical storage, thermal energy systems, energy markets, e-mobility, etc., and provide performant and practical algorithmic solutions for their challenges.
You advise and participate in the development of (IoT) solutions for research, deployment in field trials and valorization.
You support the development and implementation of specialized software from inception/prototype stage up to production grade.
You take responsibility for software quality and availability, data engineering, and porting of research applications to PaaS cloud and/or on-premise solutions together with infrastructure engineer(s).
You continuously learn and improve your skills in software development and IT and are open to learn more on the neighboring energy domains. You actively explore novel technologies and frameworks.
You work as part of the team as well as independently, you share your expertise and proactively advise on methods and components.
Do you want to help determine the direction in Europe for the use of complex environmental health data in support of European sustainability policies?
With its research program 'Sustainable health', VITO is committed to supporting the social transitions to a more preventive health system. We want you in our team to strengthen our expertise in data management and analysis, to facilitate environmental health research and to translate research into solutions for local, Flemish and European governments and companies. Does the following range of responsibilities appeal to you?
Within a large European partnership you will be responsible for developing and applying guidelines with regard to data management (storage, sharing and linking of data, standardization, harmonization, quality control, security) and data analysis. You maintain an overview of experts and organizations within and outside VITO who practically organize the management of data on chemical substances, environmental distribution, human exposure, toxicity, health, living environment and lifestyle. Your research focus is on the development and application of new methods to improve the integration and analysis of complex, heterogeneous, person-related and decentralized environmental and health data in Europe. You are also familiar with concepts such as FAIR data and Open data, and you know the requirements of GDPR.
We expect the following from you:
You lead the implementation of a work package in European research for policy support, coordinate the international team and ensure the timely delivery of results.
You work closely with the program manager, your colleagues from the project team, as well as with the customer to determine needs and define customer-oriented solutions within agreed time and budget limits. You translate the research results into advice for colleagues and customers.
You convince partners and customers with your knowledge of data analysis, vision on data management and with an eye for innovation.
You take the initiative to include “data thinking” and integration of various environmental and health data in new research proposals, in consultation with your team members.
You present research and project results on international forums and also ensure knowledge transfer to team members.
You expand your international network with research partners and governmental clients, in order to create new opportunities for VITO in the field of environmental health.
VITO's Remote Sensing unit develops and operates innovative Earth Observation systems that help to monitor and understand some of the major social and economic challenges our planet is facing. For this we work with systems that acquire data from satellites, manned aviation and drones.
We are looking for a Software Engineer to join us in developing robust and scalable data processing systems for Earth Observation. A typical processing system starts from raw sensor data acquired by a satellite or drone and converts it into value-added information while a combination of image processing and machine learning techniques are applied. The processing systems can be deployed on dedicated hardware or on various cloud environments.
As a software developer / designer you will:
Create production software components, analytics applications and data visualization
Work together with architects, subject matter experts and product owners
You will be involved in several research and knowledge-intensive consultancy projects as an expert on modelling and assessment of energy markets. The markets in scope cover electricity extended to multi-carrier markets for gas and heat: from day-ahead markets to real-time balancing including system services. You will model markets as game theoretic problems, capturing system operator or market participant behaviours. Modelling languages are Python and Julia. You will be based in VITO/EnergyVille in Thor Park Genk, Belgium.
As Expert Energy market modelling, you will
Collaborate within the energy market team on various projects.
Develop and assess new concepts for energy markets and products, and create insights on innovative market design for all the involved stakeholders in the energy landscape.
Formulate mathematical problems for different (multi-carrier) energy market designs applying optimization and game theory, including the individual decision-making of market participants.
Implement and develop solutions/algorithms for the formulated problems in Python/Julia using mathematical solvers.
Translate your research findings in policy and strategy advice to relevant stakeholders including regulators, policymakers, system operators and industry.
Publish your work in scientific journals and conferences.
Contribute to writing (parts of) project proposals and offers to tenders.
Manage defined tasks and budget related to your area of expertise.
