Senior Software Engineer DANS

Are you an experienced technical professional ready to contribute to large-scale international projects in the field of open science? Do you have a strong background in software engineering and are you motivated to help advance FAIR data infrastructures in Europe? Then this position may be a perfect fit for you.

32-38 hours per week

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will primarily work within the context of European-funded projects such as EOSC Data Commons. You will lead tasks and work packages focused on research data infrastructure, metadata quality and FAIR assessment, and metadata services within the EOSC Federation.

• Designing and developing software tools and applications to support FAIR data access, metadata harvesting, and data quality assessment.
• Designing, building, deploying and maintaining RESTful web‑services in Python (e.g. FastAPI).
• Building and maintaining container‑based back‑ and front‑end components using Python and JavaScript.
• Managing data structures across various database systems: relational (PostgreSQL) and triple stores (e.g. GraphDB, Fuseki).
• Contributing to technical innovations in Linked Data, workflow orchestration, application containerization, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Collaborating with international partners in EU‑funded EOSC initiatives, including projects such as Data Commons and EDEN to design, develop, and integrate interoperable software components supporting federated open science infrastructures.
• Leading project work packages, monitoring progress and milestones, ensuring the timely delivery of project deliverables, and contributing to reporting and dissemination tasks.
• Working with the open‑source Dataverse repository software, and interacting with the APIs from platforms such as Data Cite, OpenAIRE, 4TU.Research Data and Skosmos.
• Representing DANS in national and international project meetings and maintaining strong stakeholder relationships.

You hold a master’s degree in a relevant field (e.g. computer science, engineering). You have a minimum of five years of experience in software engineering and project‑based work in international research environments.

• Proven experience in software development with Python and JavaScript.
• Experience with version control systems such as Git and Git Hub.
• Experience with containers, cloud deployment, and HPC environments.
• Experience with structured and semantic data models and technologies, including RDF, SKOS, SHACL, and SPARQL, as well as knowledge representation.

• Experience in leading tasks or work packages in EU‑funded projects.
• Affinity with open science, FAIR data, metadata standards, and research data infrastructures (e.g. EOSC, European Data Spaces).
• Fluency in English; understanding of Dutch is a plus.

DANS is located on Anna van Saksenlaan in The Hague, within walking distance of Laan van NOI station. It is possible to work partially (up to 50%) from home.

Depending on education and experience the minimum salary is €4 728 per month and the maximum salary is €7 297 per month for a full‑time appointment (38 hours, scale 11‑12 cao Nederlandse Universiteiten/KNAW). This is exclusive of 8% vacation allowance, 8.3% year‑end bonus, travel allowance, internet allowance, home‑working allowance and pension accrual with ABP. It is a fixed‑term contract through December 2028 due to project funding, with a possibility of extension beyond 2028 based on project progress.

The KNAW offers an excellent secondary benefits package tailored to employees’ life stage, lifestyle or career ambitions, for example by working an extra two hours a week you can increase days off from 29 to 41 days a year (full‑time).

The KNAW considers a working environment in which everyone feels welcome and appreciated extremely important. We strive for an inclusive culture that embraces differences. In the event of equal suitability, preference will be given to the candidate who enhances diversity within the Academy.

We will not respond to any supplier enquiries based on this job advertisement.