OUR PLACEMENTS

Placement summary

Working for the Head of Research Projects, the successful graduate will be a key team member within our innovation based research projects team during this 12 month placement. You will work with a broad range of people and skills and you will be given accountability from day one. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn a great deal from internal networking and systems administration for our business, through to external collaboration with many European partners. As we are a small business we offer lots of flexibility with plenty of room for career growth and aspirations, and this placement may be made permanent.

Job description

Project Description

Horizon 2020 is the biggest Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020) – in addition to the private investment that this money will attract. It promises more breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts by taking great ideas from the lab to the market.

Horizon 2020 is the financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at securing Europe's global competitiveness.

Seen as a means to drive economic growth and create jobs, Horizon 2020 has the political backing of Europe’s leaders and the Members of the European Parliament. They agreed that research is an investment in our future.

By coupling research and innovation, Horizon 2020 is helping to achieve this with its emphasis on excellent science, industrial leadership and tackling societal challenges. The goal is to ensure Europe produces world-class science, removes barriers to innovation and makes it easier for the public and private sectors to work together in delivering innovation.

Horizon 2020 is open to everyone, with a simple structure that reduces red tape and time so participants can focus on what is really important. This approach makes sure new projects get off the ground quickly – and achieve results faster.

The EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation will be complemented by further measures to complete and further develop the European Research Area. These measures will aim at breaking down barriers to create a genuine single market for knowledge, research and innovation.

FlexiOPS are involved with three H2020 projects; DICE, ENTICE and BEACON.

Placement Objectives

The placement will provide professional, graduate-level software development experience and to assist our company as it embarks on new research and innovation within H2020 Research & Development Projects.

Role Description

• Undertake coding in various languages to aid interoperability between cloud software stack and project developments
• Allow 3rd party tools to communicate effectively to our cloud software via SOAP API, RESTful interface and programmable plug-ins
• Research and document innovative areas relating to project deliverables
• Understand and translate technical and business requirements from projects
• Take responsibility for delivering against identified project activities and work packages
• Travel to a range of locations across Europe to align collaboration efforts with some of our European partners during critical elements of our projects

Qualifications

You’ll ideally have at least a 2:1 (or equivalent) in a computer science type degree.

Skills / Experience

Essential Skills

This role would suit a very talented university leaver who has plenty of hands-on experience programming. Equally as important are an ability to build strong relationships, friendly personality, good team working, able to quickly learn new skills and communicate effectively.

As well as a good academic record, you will have:

• An ability to learn new technologies quickly
• High motivation with enthusiasm to succeed and progress
• Excellent problem solving ability, with an inquisitive and logical approach
• Ability to build strong relationships
• Sound planning & organisational skills to handle the workload and to prioritise activities in a dynamic work environment
• Capability to present and communicate project status to a wider audience
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Willingness to travel
• Collaborative project experience
• A can do attitude with a streak of perfectionism

You should also have:

• A good working knowledge of object-oriented programming
• Familiarity with POSIX APIs
• Experience of Linux environments
• Experience of source control (Git, SVN etc.)

Desirable Skills

The following are by no means necessary, but please do tell us about them as well:

• Exposure to the ISP/hosting environment
• Java experience
• Linux kernel and/or device driver programming
• Exposure to virtualisation environments at a development level (Xen, KVM, VMware, Parallels and HyperV especially relevant)
• Debian package maintenance
• Packet level understanding of Ethernet and IP networking, and implementation of protocols
• System Administrator skills

We know no one will have all the above skills, so don’t worry if you don’t meet them all. The main thing we need is the ability to take whatever is thrown at you (we’re a small company after all) and to work independently.

Benefits

Company benefits

• Hands on experience on a wide range of problems and issues
• Exposure to many industry sectors
• An organic learning approach
• An excellent platform to jump-start your career
• Exposure to and experience of many aspects of other organisations
• Induction into the business and culture

Placement benefits

As part of the ScotGrad Graduate Placement Programme, you may have access to a tailored graduate business skills training course. ScotGrad placements also offer a unique opportunity to connect with a vast network of graduates and ScotGrad alumni. All graduates appointed through the programme are encouraged to make use of the ScotGrad LinkedIn group to communicate with other ScotGrad participants, learn about any professional development opportunities and build up a professional network.

Additional information

Location: Edinburgh/Livingston

Planned interview date: TBC - August 2016

This placement may result in a permanent employment afterwards

Preferred start date: TBC - August 2016

Company information

FlexiOPS is Scotland’s most successful provider of innovative infrastructure and software technology solutions within the Horizon 2020 funding program. Offering a complete IaaS software platform that allows partners to explore monetized cloud business services.

Since 2010, under the previous guise of Flexiant Research, FlexiOPS became a key player in the European Commission funded FP7 and Horizon 2020 research programmes. Since 2016 FlexiOPS has continued this heritage helping to guide projects in their shape and form to ensure that the output of the project can be realised in the marketplace. We also allow project partners to utilise the state of the art cloud platform that we host. In addition, FlexiOPS works closely with partners to ensure project progress is disseminated successfully and that project results are exploited to their full potential.

It is a very exciting time to join FlexiOPS. We are currently expanding our team, developing new and exciting software solutions and taking on board even more EC funded projects.

Company website: www.flexiant.com