HTS Mission Operations Engineer

ROLE DESCRIPTION SUMMARY

SES is looking for a talented individual, for the role of Mission Operations Engineer, who would support design development and oversee planning and implementations for current and future high throughput GEO and MEO satellite operational systems.  If you are searching for an engineering function in an international and dynamic environment and you are interested in taking an essential role in next generation satellite connectivity, you can find it at SES. You will be part of the team in charge of GEO and MEO Mission Operations, including supporting the highly anticipated, satcom operational control software system, known as the Adaptive Resource Controller (ARC).  The Adaptive Resource Control (ARC) system is a new state-of-the-art tool that automates complex satellite and ground equipment configurations within the O3b mPOWER MEO and SES17 GEO systems to dynamically optimize payload system resources.

As the Mission Operations Engineer, you will be at the forefront of satcom in-orbit operations, implementing satcom operational solutions and designing new innovative operational end-to-end (ETE) solutions across missions on the SES fleet.  Our engineers support mission operations, enhance our performance monitoring and analysis toolkits, and interface with several engineering teams across SES to ensure ETE service capability and mission success. 

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES / KEY RESULTS AREAS 

• Manage day-to-day mission re-configurations of both ground and satellite systems, as an interface with Network Operations Center (NOC) and Satellite Operations Center (SOC)
• Define operational use cases for system-level services including new service commissioning, outage response, service level improvements, and service level contingency scenarios.  SES Product & Services suite for MEO and GEO SatCom high-throughput (HTS) operations includes trunk, govt, energy/offshore, and mobility service applications
• Interface with engineering departments, including Gateway, Satellite, and Terminal Engineering, to produce operational software requirements, procedures and processes to ensure successful mission configurations for SES Product & Services Suite.  This includes translating end-to-end service agreements for an SES provisioned service into operational mission configurations for satellite, gateway and terminal engineering
• Test and validate ARC and associated mission software systems, through ETE testing and operational Start of Service, supporting enhancement feature definition, sprint planning, test case development and operational requirement validation (Agile process) 
• Become a subject matter expert and centralized interface for SES mission operational systems, including automated systems like ARC and supporting software environments
• Develop and maintain O3b mPower/SES17 and future mission Concept of Operations, monitoring and service configuration tools, and procedures to ensure ETE Service Level Agreements are met 
• Develop and maintain data analysis and trending tools for mission troubleshooting and analysis.  Ability to understand and troubleshoot software algorithms geared towards AI, machine learning and optimization techniques
• Act as the On-call support for SES17 and O3b mPower Mission Operations, being the escalation path for mission operational issues and troubleshooting of operational software systems, including ARC. 
• In this escalation role, the Mission Operations Engineer
  • Identifies and isolates root cause for operational misconfigurations, including ARC or ARC interface issues, that affect service availability
  • Provides workaround and enhancement solutions to facilitate recovery of all mission service degradation and outages.  This includes troubleshooting of software systems, RF and network-based link performance issues, interference scenarios, and isolation of basic hardware and software malfunctions at satellite, gateway hub and ground stations

COMPETENCIES

• A strong sense of initiative, self-starter attitude and willingness to lead new concepts from inception to implementation
• Possesses excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Sound theoretical knowledge, and be eager to implement it in a practical environment
• Comfortable working with a Program Management Office (PMO) structure and Agile approach to software development
• Strong communication skills, both written and oral, and team-spirit
• Willingness to integrate into an international environment

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer/Software Engineering, or related spacecraft engineering fields/disciplines.  Specialization in telecommunications preferred
• (Four) 4+ years of professional experience in satcom operations and/or satellite or telecommunications (payload) engineering is preferred
• Be able to provide 24/7 on-call support, react to contingencies and cope with high stress situations
• Exposure to digital payload technology and phased array operation is considered a strong asset
• Direct Satcom Operations experience is highly preferred
• Previous exposure to satellite constellation operations for LEO/MEO is a strong asset
• Well-versed in end-to-end satellite communication systems, link budget analysis, RF telecommunications, signal acquisition, processing and analysis
• Familiarity with DVB-S2 standards, digital modulation schemes/techniques, ACM, (A)UPC, error correction, etc

OTHER KEY REQUIREMENTS / COMMENTS

• Skilled in developing software tools for data analysis, data trending, data warehousing and data acquisition. Intermediate or Advanced in analytical programming languages (e.g, Python and/or MATLAB). Familiar with data retrieval, data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence.  Exposure to Web Dev or Web Programming Languages is a plus.
• Comfortable working in Windows and/or Linux environments, familiar with database management and computer networking (e.g. distributed systems, communications protocols, real-time system, or cloud computing and data services, e.g. Azure Data Lake, Databricks or Data Factory, Apache kafka, etc)