The Centre of Expertise in Big Geodata Science (CRIB) uses a collaborative approach to develop innovative, time- and energy-efficient solutions for large and complex geospatial and Earth Observation workflows and shares this know-how with colleagues from the Faculty ITC, its network of partners, and beyond.

You will perform research on methods to improve the performance and efficiency of geospatial workflows to process large spatiotemporal datasets by using state-of-the-art parallel and distributed computing capabilities provided by modern hardware and software infrastructure (e.g., SIMD, multithreading, GPU, etc.). You will contribute to the development of open-source research software that implements such methods to enhance the quality and efficiency of geospatial computing starting from workstations and going up to large-scale cloud platforms. You will publish your outputs and lessons learned as open-access scientific publications in line with Open Science and FAIR principles, and present them at scientific meetings and conferences.

You will also work closely with staff and students of the Scientific Departments of the Faculty ITC to apply big geodata technologies to help address real-life problems in various research domains and themes. You will contribute to CRIB's training and capacity development activities and support the management and operation of our award-wining Geospatial Computing Platform, which serves geospatial computing needs of ITC staff, students, and alumni. You will also contribute to national and international project development.

• A PhD degree in Computer Science, GIS, Remote Sensing, or a similar field with relevance to geospatial computing
• Research interests that fit into our vision to develop and share know-how and tools for time- and energy-efficient geospatial computing, especially on the Cloud
• Excellent collaboration skills in a multi-cultural academic setting and ability to work independently
• Demonstrated experience in cloud computing and big data technology
• Experience in high-performance computing using multi-core, multi-CPU, GPU, multi-GPU, or computing clusters. Experience with containerized workflows is an asset
• Experience with low- and high-level geospatial computing tools and applications (e.g., GDAL, PDAL, PROJ, QGIS, Pangeo Stack, etc.) and ML/AI frameworks is an asset
• Experience in software development in a research environment. Relevant skills for developing and documenting open-source, robust, and reusable software is an asset
• Experience with system programming languages (e.g., C and C++) and high-level programming languages (e.g., Python and R)
• An excellent command of English. Knowledge of, and/or willingness to learn Dutch is an advantage

• An inspiring and challenging international environment
• Fulltime position for initially one year, after which your position can become permanent, subject to a successful evaluation
• Gross monthly salary between € 3,974.- and € 5,439.- (depending on experience and qualifications, job profile Researcher, level 3)
• A holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary and a year-end bonus of 8.3%
• Excellent support for research and facilities for professional and personal development
• A solid pension scheme
• A total of 41 holiday days in case of fulltime employment
• Professional and personal improvement programmes
• Costs for moving to Enschede may be reimbursed

Your position will be within the ITC Faculty Bureau, under which the CRIB is located. You will report to the Head of CRIB.

The Centre of Expertise in Big Geodata Science (CRIB) was established in March 2020 to enable the better use of geospatial big data and cloud computing technologies in research, education, and institutional strengthening activities of ITC. The mission of the Centre is to collect, develop, and share operational know-how on big data and cloud computing to solve large-scale geospatial problems. The vision of the Centre is to position the University of Twente and ITC as a globally renowned centre of excellence in geospatial big data and cloud computing. For this purpose, the Centre performs research for development, integration, and better use of cloud computing and big data technologies, provides consultancy, organizes theoretical and hands-on training to improve expert knowledge, facilitates the community of practice activities, operates a powerful and easy to use infrastructure for geospatial computing, and networks with data provides, developers, and research institutions.