Scientist - Defence

About this job

We are currently looking for a Scientist to join the team in The Hague.

As a Scientist, you will be part of a multidisciplinary team that is involved in research into the effects of ammunition on military vehicles, personnel and infrastructure. An example would be the contributing to the development, advice on the use and evaluation of systems deployed by the military. You will work in an environment where experiment and theory reinforce each other, and where your ideas and insights contribute to innovative solutions.

With your work, you make a direct contribution to the safety of military personnel and the improvement of protection systems that can save lives. In this position, you will have every opportunity to further develop your expertise, bring in new insights and work together with a passionate team on groundbreaking research. Your work makes the difference – every day. Both theoretical and experimental research are carried out within the team.

Main responsibilities

• In this position, you will work within the team that focuses on the modelling of vulnerability and lethality of defence systems. This modelling is of great importance to determine the effectiveness of weapon systems and the vulnerability of defence systems such as vehicles or personal protective equipment.
• Together with other customers and partners from the defence industry, you will work on the development and validation of the in-house developed special calculation tool used for vulnerability/lethality studies, and use this tool to advise customers and partners on vulnerability/lethality issues.
• You will be involved in ammo effects; the underlying physics, simulations, experiments and analyses of simulation and experimental results. This will help you develop an understanding of what exactly happens in the event of an explosion or bullet impact and what the effects are on the affected object.
• In addition, you contribute to the development and deployment of our calculation tool. You will report the results of your work and present them within the project teams and to our customers and partners.

Requirements

• A completed university education or PhD in a relevant technical direction, such as Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering or Applied Physics.
• At least 5 years of work experience within a relevant research or development environment and/or within the defence context. Even if you have a PhD, we expect you to bring several years of additional work experience.
• Possibility to obtain a security clearance.
• Demonstrable work experience in a project and team context, where you have shown that you can give substantive direction to the development of an innovative (software) product.

Affinity with:

• Identifying dominant physical phenomena, and then describing them in engineering models required for our in-house tool.
• Writing scripts (e.g. in Python, Matlab, C#).
• Reporting and version control (such as Gitlab, PDM).

• Preferably some knowledge of mechanics and/or biomechanics.
• Interest in preparing and successfully conducting and supervising experimental research in a team.
• You have a command of both the Dutch and English languages, both verbally and in writing. For Dutch, at least C1 level.
• You are an enthusiastic, creative, proactive, open and practical researcher.
• You would like to contribute to the generation and application of knowledge for our partners; keeping an eye on the final practical application and an eye for detail.
• You like to take the lead, are social and communicative and able to break complex concepts into a common language that can be understood by people with different backgrounds. You dare to take responsibility for the result and your own development.
• We value collaboration, diversity of perspectives and a safe working environment in which everyone can develop.

Company

At S[&]T we contribute to a safer life on earth by translating space data into valuable and actionable insights. We oversee data from instruments to application, and apply our expertise within our software frameworks, information products and consultancy.

Our society relies on space and scientific instruments for climate change monitoring, navigation, defence and national security, and other crucial services we all use in our daily lives. These instruments produce an enormous quantity of complex data, and our goal is to unlock its value.

We have more than 20 years of experience working on instrument calibration, the creation of data quality monitoring tools, the development of real-time data processing frameworks, and the development of application-specific algorithms. With this, we help organisations, governments and industries to strengthen their information position and thereby improve their decision making. We focus on the following domains: Space & Science, Defence & Security, Environment & Sustainability, and High-Tech Consulting.