Senior Research Software Engineer

As an internationally recognized research center, VITO accelerates the transition to a sustainable world. Our world-class Environment & Health team puts data and scientific innovation at the service of a healthier society. To enable cutting-edge research on the links between the environment and our health, we develop scientific applications, data platforms, and data catalogues. We provide services to both data owners and data users across Europe, helping them to make data interoperable and to facilitate data reuse.

We are looking for an experienced Senior Research Software Engineer to lead the design and evolution of scientific data ecosystems. You will play a pivotal role in enabling data-driven research by creating and implementing architectures that make complex datasets discoverable, interoperable, trustworthy, and reusable across organizations, disciplines, and borders. Your vision ensures a robust technical backbone of these data ecosystems, aligned with the FAIR data principles. In this role, you will contribute to open science and shape European data infrastructures with long-term societal impact.

Your responsibilities

• You develop our research data infrastructure for environmental health data. You gather requirements from colleagues and stakeholders, you translate these requirements into a clear technical approach, and you coordinate the project team to ensure the plan is executed.

• You are an advocate for FAIR data: You apply FAIR data principles in the design of data infrastructures. Based on input from domain experts, you maintain and further develop semantic resources for the domain of environmental health, and you promote their adoption and sound governance.

• Your implementation plan is aligned with and seizes opportunities offered by the rapidly evolving European data landscape (e.g. EHDS, EOSC).

• You help ensure that data infrastructures comply with relevant regulations (e.g. GDPR) and internal policies, working closely with VITO’s data protection and security experts.

• You work closely with product owners, other software engineers, data stewards, researchers on Environment & Health, and with our European partners.

• You contribute to strategic roadmaps, funding proposals, and innovation initiatives related to research data infrastructure.

• You will shape how environmental health data is shared and reused across Europe, directly influencing how chemical risks and exposures are assessed in initiatives such as PARC, the European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (https://www.eu-parc.eu/) and in EIRENE, the European Research Infrastructure for the human exposome (https://eirene.eu/).

Your profile

• You hold a Master degree in bioinformatics, computational biology, genomics, computer science, data science, or a related field – or you have equivalent knowledge through professional experience.

• You have at least 2 years of experience as software architect, software engineer, or data professional working with scientific applications, where you led the overall technical vision or implementation of a software project.

• You can demonstrate experience in coordinating, guiding or leading teams of developers or data engineers with different backgrounds and skills. Your clear communication style motivates team members and ensures expectations are clear. At VITO, the project team for this work uses a diverse range of frameworks:

  • Python (polars, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, ...)

  • Ruby on Rails

  • R

• You know the best practices in software development, design and architecture. You can demonstrate experience in API development, in defining data models for relational databases, and with the design of ETL pipelines. You have professional experience with the Python scientific data stack (polars, numpy).

• You have hands-on experience implementing FAIR data principles. Experience with semantic technologies or resources (e.g. vocabulary or ontology development or maintenance) is considered a strong asset.

• Experience with any of the following is considered an asset:

  • The (re)use of personal data,

  • Distributed or federated data infrastructures and related web services,

  • Linked data concepts & technologies, such as RDF, OWL or SPARQL

  • Health research data

  • The European data landscape, including EHDS and EOSC

Our offer

• We operate in an activity‑based way, meaning your work activities guide where you work. Our headquarters is located in Mol, where we regularly work and meet as a team. You also have the possibility to work from home or from one of our satellite offices in Antwerp, Genk, Ghent, Leuven, Kortrijk or Ostend.

• A competitive salary with a range of benefits, including allowances, insurance, and a modular package of holidays.

• Innovation is our asset, so it goes without saying that we offer our employees the opportunity to take additional training courses and stay up to date in their field of expertise. You always get the opportunity to broaden your knowledge, for example on FAIR or linked data technologies. 

• You will be part of an organization with an international reputation, known for its advanced technological research and scientific consultancy. 

• With us, you will contribute directly to sustainable developments at local, national, and global level through your innovative applications. You provide an answer to today’s societal challenges. 

• Moreover, at VITO we attach great importance to work-life balance. We do this by being flexible, depending on your specific needs.