Research Engineer

As a research engineer, you will collaborate with researchers and IT professionals (over 200 employees). Your mission? To bridge the gap between IT possibilities and the challenges of applied research in Food, Nature, and Agriculture. Create cutting-edge IT solutions that empower and accelerate our groundbreaking research. From scalable systems to secure architectures, you'll work alongside our IT experts to deliver solutions that make a real impact. This role is packed with challenges and offers outstanding career growth and educational opportunities.

You will be based in a multidisciplinary IT team that works in partnership with research teams or projects. A question that you may encounter for example is to integrate existing tools with the shared IT infrastructure. Eventually software changes may be necessary to achieve this integration. Another example is making sure that the data that is collected with the help of measuring devices gets exported to IT infrastructure. You make sure that the researcher can process and analyze the data. These are only a few examples of the challenges that you may meet.
You are familiar with scientific processes. You are able to apply a broad range of consulting and IT skills to support researchers. You have the flexibility to find the right solution for the wide range of questions that you may get.

The responsibilities we trust you with:

• you will do the intake for support requests from new research projects;
• you analyze the current IT solutions (or plans) and propose an improved plan;
• you make a design for the solution (application, databases and/or infrastructure) that is needed. You make sure that the design fits within the guidelines from architecture, security, privacy and that the solution is compliant to the WUR guiding principles;
• you coordinate the implementation of the solution. Some of the work will be done by platform teams, some of the work you will do yourself;
• during the whole project, you are the main contact person for the client, the platform team, suppliers, architecture and security;
• write user documentation and give/develop courses.

• you have a scientific master’s degree in Food, Nature, Agri or IT;
• you have at least 3 years of experience as a IT specialist or consultant in the field of research;
• you have experience working in an Agile team;
• you have experience in large scale computing infrastructures (like hyper computing, clusters, cloud) and with Kubernetes, Docker, Git or ArgoCD;
• you have experience with Artificial Intelligence or Internet of Things;
• you have experience with scientific programming languages;
• you have excellent consulting and communication skills.

Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment . A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:

• working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
• the option to accrue additional compensation hours by working more, per week;
• sabbatical leave, study leave, and partially paid parental leave;
• there is a strong focus on vitality and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee;
• a fixed December bonus of 8,3%;
• excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will of course receive a good salary. We offer, depending on your experience, a competitive gross salary of between

€ 3.088 and € 5.737 for a full-time working week of 36 hours, in accordance with the CLA Wageningen Research (scale 10/11). Additionally, a contract for 0,8 FTE can be discussed.

Wageningen University & Research encourages internal advancement opportunities and mobility with an internal recruitment policy. There are plenty of options for personal initiative in a learning environment, and we provide excellent training opportunities. We are offering a unique position in an international environment with a pleasant and open working atmosphere.

You are going to work at the greenest and most innovative campus in Holland, and at a university that has been chosen as the “Best University ” in the Netherlands for the 19th consecutive time.

Coming from abroad
Wageningen University & Research is the university and research centre for life sciences. The themes we deal with are relevant to everyone around the world and Wageningen, therefore, has a large international community and a lot to offer to international employees.

Our team of advisors on Dutch immigration procedures will help you with the visa application procedures for yourself and, if applicable, for your family.

Feeling welcome also has everything to do with being well informed. Wageningen University & Research's International Community page contains practical information about what we can do to support international employees and students coming to Wageningen. Furthermore, we can assist you with any additional advice and information about for example helping your partner to find a job, housing, or schooling.

Finally, certain categories of international staff may be eligible for a tax exemption on a part of their salary during the first five years in the Netherlands.

For more information about this position, please contact Diana Hoogeveen, Department Manager: 0317-485 269 or by email: [email protected] .
For more information about the procedure, please contact Leoni Gasille, HR Business Partner, by email: [email protected] .

Do you want to apply?
You can apply directly using the apply button on the vacancy page on our website which will allow us to process your personal information with your approval.
This vacancy will be listed up to and including Monday 6th of May 2024.
We hope to schedule the first job interviews in the week of Monday 13th of May 2024.

Equal opportunities
Wageningen University & Research (WUR) employs a large number of people with very different backgrounds and qualities, who inspire and motivate each other. We want every talent to feel at home in our organisation and be offered the same career opportunities. We therefore especially welcome applications from people who are underrepresented at WUR. For more information please go to our inclusivity page . A good example of how WUR deals with inclusiveness can be read on the page working at WUR with a functional impairment .

Wageningen University & Research
The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment.
With its roughly 30 branches, 7,200 employees (6,400 fte) and 13,200 students and over 150.000 participants to WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.

Read the 5 reasons  why your future colleagues enjoy working at WUR and watch this video  to get an idea of our green campus!