European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts - ECMWF
AI & Automation Specialist
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AI & Automation Specialist
ECMWF is building its in-house capability to deliver AI-enabled improvements across its corporate functions, and this role is at the centre of it. As AI & Automation Specialist, you will work across ECMWF's administrative functions to turn pressing operational problems into working solutions. You will prototype, build, automate and deliver hands-on. This is an individual contributor role with genuine scope, and you will see your work in use, not in a backlog.
Your Role
You will report to the Corporate AI Coordinator and support Finance, HR, Procurement, Communications, IT/Helpdesk and other administrative functions as needed, typically on document analysis, workflow automation, data extraction, and applying LLMs and agentic systems to corporate use cases. You work as an individual contributor, not as part of a software-engineering team. You prototype and build each solution to a working state yourself in alignment with stakeholders, then hand it to ECMWF's technology delivery teams or external suppliers to harden, integrate and deploy, including deeper integration over time with future systems such as the ERP. The result is real improvements corporate teams can use day to day, and a foundation for ECMWF's longer-term digital transformation.
About ECMWF
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is a world leader in Numerical Weather Predictions providing high-quality data for weather forecasts and environmental monitoring. As an intergovernmental organisation we collaborate internationally to serve our members and the wider community with global weather predictions, data and training activities that are critical to contribute to safe and thriving societies.
The success of our activities depends on the funding and partnerships of our 35 Member and Co-operating States who provide the support and direction of our work. Our talented staff together with the international scientific community, and our powerful supercomputing capabilities, are the core of a 24/7 research and operational centre with a focus on medium and long-range predictions. We also hold one of the largest meteorological data archives in the world.
Our vision: World-leading monitoring and predictions of the Earth system enabled by cutting-edge physical, computational and data science, resulting from a close collaboration between ECMWF and the members of the European Meteorological Infrastructure, will contribute to a safe and thriving society.
Our mission: Deliver global numerical weather predictions focusing on the medium-range and monitoring of the Earth system to and with our Member States.
In addition, ECMWF has established a strong partnership with the European Union and has been entrusted with the implementation and operation of the Destination Earth initiative and the Climate Change and Atmosphere Monitoring Services of the Copernicus Programme, as well as being a contributor to the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. Other areas of work include High Performance Computing and the development of digital tools that enable ECMWF to extend provision of data and products covering weather, climate, air quality, fire and flood prediction and monitoring.
ECMWF is a multi-site organisation, with its headquarters in Reading, UK, a data centre in Bologna, Italy, and a large presence in Bonn, Germany as a central location for our EU-related activities. ECMWF is internationally recognised as the voice of expertise in numerical weather predictions for forecasts and climate science.
About Copernicus: Copernicus.eu
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About Destination Earth: destine.ecmwf.int
Your Responsibilities
Solution Design, Prototyping & Delivery
- Analyse corporate workflows and pain points; assess technical feasibility, data availability, integration constraints, and security/compliance considerations.
- Propose and implement appropriate tools, architectures, and integration patterns for each problem.
- Build proofs-of-concept and prototypes using available AI and automation tools.
- Work closely with corporate units throughout, ensuring solutions align with operational realities and organisational policies.
Requirements, Documentation & Handover
- Translate business problems into clear technical requirements, user stories and acceptance criteria.
- Map data sources, data flows and dependencies relevant to each use case.
- Document processes, integration points and solution designs in a structured and accessible way.
- Prepare technical handovers to enable future scaling, further internal development or vendor implementation.
AI, Agents & Automation
- Apply LLM-based techniques to corporate use cases: document analysis, structured extraction, knowledge retrieval, summarisation, and classification.
- Design and build AI agents and assistants (tool/function calling, grounding in organisational knowledge, instruction design, evaluations, and human-in-the-loop oversight) using Copilot Studio or equivalent platforms, and custom approaches where they fit better.
- Build and maintain workflow automations using among others the Microsoft stack (Power Automate, Copilot Studio, SharePoint, Dataverse).
- Support early testing, iteration, and refinement of use cases.
Collaboration & Advisory
- Work closely with the ECMWF Corporate AI Coordinator on prioritisation and sequencing of use cases.
- Participate in workshops, interviews and discovery sessions with corporate units.
- Coordinate with operational teams, subject-matter experts and IT colleagues.
- Contribute technical insight to the broader AI strategy, ERP readiness and roadmap.
What We Are Looking For
- Pragmatic and outcome-driven; chooses the right tool for the problem and balances speed against risk.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a proactive, structured approach to spotting opportunities and naming constraints early.
- Adaptable and responsive to evolving priorities, requirements and user needs; comfortable working iteratively within existing systems, processes and constraints rather than expecting a blank slate.
- Excellent communication skills, able to engage clearly and confidently with technical teams, remote colleagues and non-technical stakeholders.
- Highly organised, with the ability to manage multiple tasks and meet competing deadlines.
- Builder mindset with a strong sense of ownership.
- Collaborative team player, effective within cross-functional and multidisciplinary teams.
Your Profile
Essential criteria
- Candidates should have a university degree (EQF level 6) or equivalent experience in a relevant field such as computer science, data science, information systems, business analytics, engineering or a related discipline.
- Proficient in a scripting language (e.g. Python) and SQL.
- Demonstrated experience applying cloud-based AI/LLM services in production settings, including patterns such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), document processing, structured extraction and classification.
- Experience designing and building AI agents or assistants, including tool/function calling, grounding in organisational knowledge, and instruction design.
- Hands-on experience with workflow automation, building and maintaining automated processes end to end.
- Ability to understand business processes and translate them into clear technical requirements.
- Fluency in English is essential as candidates will be required to work effectively in English.
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Desirable criteria
- Experience with the Microsoft Power Platform (Power Automate, Copilot Studio, SharePoint, Dataverse), with openness to other tools where they fit better.
- Experience building AI agents using Microsoft Copilot Studio or equivalent platforms.
- Experience with data integration and pipeline plumbing: moving, transforming and reconciling data across systems so AI components can consume it reliably.
- Familiarity with agentic coding tools (e.g. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot).
- Experience documenting workflows, system interactions and dependencies.
- Experience engaging and building relationships with staff at various levels of seniority across departments, and driving the adoption of new, more efficient ways of working.
- Experience gathering requirements, testing ideas, and explaining technical findings clearly to non-technical audiences.
- Experience supporting business users through workshops and training.
- Knowledge of one of the Centre's other working languages (French or German) is an advantage.
Other Information
- Grade remuneration: The successful candidates will be recruited according to the scales of the Co-ordinated Organisations. Full details of salary scales and allowances available on the ECMWF website at www.ecmwf.int/en/about/jobs.
- Interviews will take place by videoconference via MS Teams.
- If you feel that you have the relevant profile and motivation to join us but don't meet precisely all of the skills above, we still encourage you to apply!
As a multi-site organisation, ECMWF has adopted a hybrid organisation model which allows flexibility to staff to mix office working and teleworking, including away from the duty station (within the area of our member states and co-operating states).
Successful applicants and members of their family forming part of their households will be exempt from immigration restrictions.
Who Can Apply
Applicants are invited to complete the online application form by clicking on the apply button below.
At ECMWF, we consider an inclusive environment as key for our success. We are dedicated to ensuring a workplace that embraces diversity and provides equal opportunities for all, without distinction as to race, gender, age, marital status, social status, disability, sexual orientation, religion, personality, ethnicity and culture. We value the benefits derived from a diverse workforce and are committed to having staff that reflect the diversity of the countries that are part of our community, in an environment that nurtures equality and inclusion.
Applications are invited from nationals from ECMWF Member States and Co-operating States. In these exceptional times, we also welcome applications from Ukrainian nationals for this vacancy. Applications from nationals from other countries may be considered in exceptional cases.
ECMWF Member States and Co-operating States are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.
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