European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA)

The European Maritime Safety Agency was established for the purpose of ensuring a high, uniform and effective level of maritime safety, maritime security as well as prevention of and response to pollution by ships within the EU.

The idea of a European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) originated in the late 1990s along with a number of other important European maritime safety initiatives. EMSA was set up as the regulatory agency that would provide a major source of support to the Commission and the Member States in the field of maritime safety and prevention of pollution from ships.

The European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 provides the legal basis for the establishment of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA).

The Agency’s tasks are broadly divided into four key areas in line with its founding regulation and relevant EU legislation. Firstly, the Agency assists the Commission in monitoring the implementation of EU legislation relating, among others, to ship survey and certification, certification of marine equipment, ship security, the training of seafarers and Port State Control.

Secondly, the Agency develops and operates maritime information capabilities at EU level. Significant examples are the SafeSeaNet vessel tracking system, to enable the EU-wide tracking of vessels and their cargoes, and incidents on board; and the EU LRIT Data Centre, to ensure the identification and tracking of EU flagged ships worldwide.

In parallel, a marine pollution preparedness, detection and response capability, which includes a European Network of Stand-by Oil Spill Response Vessels as well as a European satellite oil spill monitoring and vessel detection service (CleanSeaNet), contributes to an effective system for protecting EU coasts and waters from pollution by ships.

Finally, the Agency provides technical and scientific advice to the Commission in the field of maritime safety and prevention of pollution by ships in the continuous process of evaluating the effectiveness of the measures in place, and in the updating and development of new legislation. It also provides support to, and facilitates co-operation between, the Member States and disseminates best practices.

As a body of the European Union, the Agency sits at the heart of the EU maritime safety network and collaborates with many industry stakeholders and public bodies, in close cooperation with the Commission and the Member States.

The Unit’s mission is to define and implement an ICT Strategy, Architecture, Services and Policies to provide secure and reliable development, hosting and operations of EMSA’s Maritime & Corporate Applications so that they can increase business efficiency and actively and quickly support evolving business needs.

Reporting to the Head of Unit A.3, the Security and Systems Engineer will be responsible for:

• Supporting the Security Manager in the implementation, supervision, enforcement and internal audit of EMSA Security Policies, Procedures and Standards;
• The development, maintenance and operations of EMSA Intrusion Detection Systems for Maritime Applications and Corporate Services;
• Providing security consultancy to Project Officers, including giving support in the architecture and design of secure applications;
• The supervision and execution of security analysis, assessments (penetration testing and source code auditing), and security risk assessments;
• Security incident response and security incident analysis, including unknown malware analysis and reverse engineering as well as forensic analysis;
• Troubleshooting of application issues related with network and communications protocols;
• The continuous improvement of EMSA security Infrastructure and Policies (not limited to IDS/IPS);
• The collaboration with other European Institutions through CERT-EU;
• Analysis of third party entities security measures and network infrastructure to allow or reject Remote Access to EMSA.

A. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Qualifications and experience required:

A.1 Education:

• A level of education which corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma when the normal period of university education is four years or more, or;
• A level of education which corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma and appropriate professional experience of at least one year when the normal period of university education is at least three years.

A.2 language skills:

The main working language in the field of maritime safety is English. Candidates must therefore have a very good command of oral English as well as in writing with a satisfactory knowledge of at least one other official language of the European Union to the extent necessary for the performance of the above mentioned duties.

B. SELECTION CRITERIA

B.1 Essential

• Relevant degree and minimum of two years’ of professional experience;
• Hands-on engineering and administration experience of data centre and corporate ICT infrastructures;
• Experience in TCP/IP networking and security;
• Experience with tools to monitor, troubleshoot, analyse and measure complex networks and data centres;
• Proven experience with the daily operation of mission critical systems in a large organisation;
• Good analysis and problem solving skills;
• Able to work to tight time-scales and as part of a team;
• Willingness to work on call rotation.

B.2 Advantageous

• Knowledge of networking and security in Virtual environments, in particular with VMWare (virtual switch, distributed virtual switch);
• Hands-on experience in administering Linux systems;
• Hands-on experience in operating within a VMWare Virtual Infrastrutcture;
• Hands-on experience of Microsoft Windows 2003/2008 operating systems;
• Hands-on experience of Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or Win 7 desktop systems;
• Knowledge of IPSec and PKI;
• Experience of working with third parties to deliver seamless IT operations;
• Knowledge of ICT Security Policies and Practises;
• Knowledge of ISO 27001 and ITIL-based service management practices;
• Hands-on experience of Checkpoint or another firewall software;
• Practical knowledge of Security Incident Response;
• Knowledge and experience in the following tools:
  • Suricata
  • Snort
  • OSSEC
  • Snorby
  • Splunk
  • IDA Pro

In order to be eligible the candidate must:

• Be a national of one of the Member States of the European Union or of Iceland or Norway;
• Be entitled to your full rights as a citizen;
• Have fulfilled the obligations imposed on you by the laws concerning military service;
• Meet the character requirements for the duties involved and
• Be physically fit to perform the duties linked to the post.

The Security and Systems Engineer will be appointed by the Executive Director, upon recommendation of the Chairman of the Selection Board.

This vacancy notice concerns a Temporary Agent position, pursuant to Article 2 a) of the Conditions of Employment of other servants of the European Communities.

The initial duration of the contract is three years, with possibility of renewal.

The successful candidate will be recruited in the grade AD 5.

The basic monthly salary, before any deductions or allowances, weighted for Lisbon, at 1 July 2010 for grade AD 5 first step is 3697.15 EUR.

In addition to the basic salary, staff members may be entitled to various allowances, such as an expatriation allowance (16% of basic salary), household allowance, dependent child allowance and education allowance. The salary is subject to a Community tax deducted at source and staff members are exempt of national taxation.

Please note that recruitment is done in the first or second step of the indicated grade, depending on the duration of the acquired professional experience. EMSA offers a comprehensive welfare package including pension scheme, medical, accident and occupational disease insurance coverage, unemployment and invalidity allowance. Further information regarding rights and conditions of employment can be found in the following document:

http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/toc100_en.pdf;

Please note that EMSA is likely to have a provision in the near future that will mean that recruited candidates shall be required to demonstrate before their first promotion the ability to work in a third European Community language.

The place of employment is Lisbon, Portugal.

Candidates are advised that if they are offered a post, and accept, they must undergo a compulsory medical examination to establish that they meet the standard of physical fitness necessary to perform the duties involved.

Candidates must submit their application electronically solely via the EMSA website within the deadline. Applications by any other means (hard copy or ordinary e-mail) or submitted after the deadline will not be accepted.

All candidates will receive an acknowledgement of receipt for their application.

EMSA is an equal opportunities employer and encourages applications from all candidates who fulfil the eligibility and selection criteria without any distinction whatsoever on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age, marital status or other family situation or sexual orientation.

You may apply in any of the official languages of the European Community, but it would be helpful to apply in English in order to facilitate the selection process. However you are requested to state your educational qualifications and positions held in the language of origin.

For each selection process a Selection Board is nominated. The selection is carried out in two phases:

1. In the first phase all eligible applications will be evaluated by the Selection Board and scored against the selection criteria. Please note that non-compliance with at least one of the essential selection criteria will result in the exclusion of the candidate from the selection process. Advantageous criteria constitute additional assets and will not result in exclusion, if not fulfilled. The advantageous criteria will be considered by the Selection Board depending on the number of applicants meeting the essential selection criteria.

On this basis, the Selection Board will invite to the interview and to the test phase the best qualified candidates (maximum of 15), on condition that they have achieved at least 60% of the highest possible score during the evaluation of applications. Should the case arise that there are various candidates scoring the same number of points in the 15th ranking, the number of candidates to be invited will be increased accordingly to accomodate this. 

2. In the second phase, the selected candidates will be invited to pass one or several written tests related to the job profile and to take part in a selection interview.

During this recruitment phase, the selected candidates will be evaluated by the Selection Board. After the interviews and tests, the Selection Board will draw up a list of the most suitable candidates to be proposed to the Appointing Authority. Only candidates receiving at least 70% of the maximum points at interview and at the test phase will be included in the list of the most suitable candidates. The Appointing Authority will select the successful candidate and decide whether to also adopt a reserve list. The successful candidates will be informed accordingly.

All candidates will receive an information letter of the outcome of their application.

Please note that a binding commitment can only be made after verification of all conditions and will take the form of a contract signed by the Executive Director.

The reserve list will remain valid for a period of 1 year following its establishment. Therefore candidates whose name will be put on a reserve list could be offered a contract during this period of time. Please note however that inclusion in the reserve list does not guarantee recruitment.

Please note that the selection process may take several months to be completed and that no information will be released during this period. Once a selection process has been completed, its status will be displayed in the e-recruitment.

Please note that once you have created your EMSA profile, any correspondence regarding your application must be sent or received via your EMSA profile.

For any prior enquiry, please refer to the FAQ (Frequently asked questions) section, or send an e-mail to mail_recruitment@emsa.europa.eu

Requests for information and appeal:

An applicant who would like further information, or considers that he/she has grounds for complaint concerning a particular decision may, at any point in the selection procedure, request further information from the Chairperson of the Selection Board.
For information on how to lodge a complaint and/or an appeal procedure, please consult the ‘General Information for Recruitment’ overview on our website for more information:
http://www.emsa.europa.eu/recruitment-info.html