Engineering & Technology Internship

The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in northern Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor (home to ALMA), and the ESO Headquarters are located in Garching, near Munich, Germany. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory, and will host and operate the southern array of the Cherenkov Telescope Array, the world's largest and most sensitive high energy gamma-ray observatory. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. On Cerro Armazones, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky" and whose operations will be fully integrated into the Paranal Observatory. ESO is offering 4 internship opportunities within its Directorate of Engineering, in Garching bei München, for STEM students during the final year of their studies. **Engineering & Technology Internship** ======================================= Garching Deadline 31/12/2026 **Duration** ------------ 5 to 6 months. **Starting Date** ----------------- Any time in 2027 (please state within your application your approximate preferred start date). **Internship Details** ---------------------- ESO's engineering internships provide hands-on experience in an international scientific and technological environment and offer exposure to the activities of one of the world's leading astronomical organisations. Interns have the opportunity to support active research and development projects within the directorate, gaining practical skills at the forefront of ground-based astronomy and technology. We offer a range of subjects to choose from, in different engineering fields: * Data analysis of telemetry logs coming from our telescopes: * + VLT turbulent environment characterisation + Local Large Language Models for engineering workflows * Real Time Computing (RTC) for Adaptive Optics: * + LLM-assisted porting of VLT legacy code (SPARTA) towards the RTC toolkit for the ELT + Modernisation of RTC data recording technologies + A neural-network inference core for adaptive optics computers: latency and jitter benchmark + Using AI (agents) to develop soft-RTC software based on the RTC toolkit + The RTC toolkit control and monitor engineering GUI + RTC toolkit distributed timestamp datapoints * Control Software for astronomical instrumentation: * + Evaluation of TwinCAT PLC++ and migration to Linux-based PLC platforms * Optical engineering: * + Using deep lear