Job Title: Senior Software Developer/Tech Lead
Reports to: CTO
Location: Greater Brussels region (within 2 hours travel distance) preferred; otherwise: Europe
Job Summary:
As a Senior Software Developer and (depending on experience and career perspective) potential Tech Lead in the CTO team at Gaia-X AISBL, you will be responsible for developing new and extending existing core software components (Typescript) of the Gaia-X Trust Framework and related initiatives (ideally Java). Because of the novelty of Gaia-X concepts in general and of your individual contributions in particular, you will interact frequently with business requirements and technical working groups of the Gaia-X association, the open source community, and technical roles at Gaia-X adopters (such as the GXDCHs or implementation projects). This will include both informal channels (email, Slack, virtual meetings) and more formal events (Gaia-X Summits, Gaia-X Tech-X). Depending on your experience and inclination, you may also assume the role as a Tech Lead of a small team of developers, guiding them in their daily work, architectural decisions, and work practices.
You will have great autonomy in playing a key role within the CTO team literally developing at the edge of the current state-of-the-art in certain areas.
Key Responsibilities:
- Software Development
- design, develop, and maintain software components to be used by the Gaia-X open-source community and Gaia-X adopters such as, for instance,
- compliance services
- notary services
- IFPS services
- registry services
- catalog services
- connector services
- various supporting tools (Credential Generator, VC-JWT tooling)
- identify, evaluate, adapt, and implement international standards related to trust frameworks into Gaia-X and related software components
- potentially participate and contribute to other OSS projects related to Gaia-X activities (e.g., LinkML, ODRL)
2. Collaboration and Communication
- Work closely with the Policy and Rules Committee (PRC) and its stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical specifications
- Support Gaia-X software development team members for using your software components
- Support Gaia-X software development team members with their analysis and development tasks
- Participate and share your technical view in suitable technical Gaia-X working groups to support prioritization and definition of technical Gaia-X deliverables
- Support other units of the Gaia-X association (e.g., Gaia-X Academy, marketing, technical presentations at events such as the Tech Theatre at the Gaia-X Summit or the Gaia-X Tech-X)
- Give technical support (e.g., guide, help, explain, demonstrate, analyse and correct implementation or documentation related problems and issues) to the Gaia-X open source and adopters communities
3. Technical Leadership (depending on experience and inclination)
- Lead a small team of developers in the design and implementation of Gaia-X related software
- Provide mentorship and guidance to team members, helping them grow their technical skills and professional development.
- Lead technical discussions on your current topics or topics within your expertise and contribute to the overall architectural decisions.
4. Research and Innovation
- Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends to identify opportunities for innovation and improvement within Gaia-X’s software ecosystem (no kidding, no ChatGPT: Just look into our GitLab repos!)
- Contribute to the development of proof-of-concept projects that demonstrate the feasibility of new technologies and approaches.
- Actively engage with open-source software communities and projects pertaining to your current and future work
5. Documentation and Best Practices
- Ensure and provide documentation of your software designs, architectures, and APIs to support future maintenance and onboarding of new team members.
- Support the creation of technical documents, standards, frameworks, guidelines, and reports developed by the Technical Committee (TC) or its Working Groups (WGs)
Qualifications:
Education & Experience
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or similar studies
- 5+ years of experience in software development
- (optional) experience in leading a small team of developers in a highly agile environment
Skills:
- programming languages (ordered by preference)
- TypeScript (must have)
- Java (definitely a plus)
- Python
- Kotlin (not a priority)
- environments
- Git (GitLab)
- Helm charts
- GUI (React/TS)
- implementation of technical (e.g., W3C) standards: ability to digest, understand, implement, and integrate technical standards into the Gaia-X software ecosystem.
Languages:
- English is a must (not negotiable)
- French is a considerable plus
- other European languages are nice to have
Preferred Qualifications:
- cryptography methods and implementations
- trust frameworks: standards, architectures, methods, and implementations
- open-source software: own contributions to OSS projects
Travel requirements:
- international travel: a few times per year (Gaia-X Summit, Tech-X, selected conferences)
- Brussels: team alignment meetings (ca. once per month)
Key Competencies:
- Self-paced and autonomous work style: Ability to self-organize and prioritize work items with only light managerial oversight or outside typical agile processes or project frames
- Ability to work and contribute in a small team: While team members typically have particular and different deliverables and tasks assigned for, we expect senior software engineers (and a Tech Lead even more so) to support their fellow colleagues
- Adaptability: Capable of working in a fast-paced environment with evolving requirements and deadlines.
- Leadership skills (optional): Capability to organize and oversee a small team of developers including structuring developing tasks and their progress
- Problem solving and analytical skills: Capability to analyze complex problems (alone and with the team) and develop solutions.
- Innovation Mindset: Willingness to explore new technologies – especially related to trust frameworks and associated standards –, staying ahead (no kidding!) of main-stream industry trends (This is a real requirement, not ChatGPT – just look into our GitLab repos!).
- Stakeholder engagement: Ability to work across diverse teams, both inside the Gaia-X AISBL and outside (e.g., OSS community, projects) and support the adoption of Gaia-X standards and software
What We Offer:
- Fully remote working environment possible; at the same time we offer a decent office in Brussels and can accommodate (but don’t force) any intermediate form of combining remote and office work
- Flexible working arrangements
- Guaranteed no micro-management
- Diverse and stimulating technical requirements and engineering challenges at the very edge of the current state-of-the-art you will not find in any corporate environment
- Collaborative and dynamic working environment, with exposure to leading experts
- Professional development opportunities in terms of scope of activities, responsibilities, knowledge domains (or all of the above)
- Opportunity to gain recognition and standing as an expert in selected OSS communities or standardization efforts
- Opportunity to contribute to a landmark initiative that is shaping the future of Europe’s cloud infrastructure and data sovereignty
Interested applicants should send their CV and a cover note by the 23/03/2025 to Mr. Christoph Strnadl – CTO to the following e-mail address: christoph.strnadl@gaia-x.eu indicating Your Name – Senior Software Developer/Tech Lead in the subject.
Please follow the application instructions. Incomplete or wrongly submitted applications will be disregarded. Applications send via LinkedIn will not be considered.
Interviews will be held on a rolling basis: we therefore strongly advise candidates to apply as soon as possible.