Student Assistant: Future Data Infrastructure of Smart Grids 10%-30%

ETH Zurich; Zürich; Vor Ort; CHF 20.664.000 - 31.685.000; Teilzeit

Zusammenfassung

ETH Zurich is seeking a reliable student assistant to design and develop data infrastructure as part of Grid2050 and NCCR Automation. You will build scalable, secure systems for smart grid research, focusing on reliability, performance, and maintainability.

The role involves working 8–15 hours per week with flexible start dates. You will gain hands-on experience with real-world data infrastructure and collaborate with leading academics and industry partners.

Qualifikationen

• ETH student enrolled in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or Power Engineering.
• Strong interest in data engineering, systems development and energy topics.
• Fluent in English; German is a plus but not mandatory.
• Available to work 8–15 hours per week.

Aufgaben

• Infrastructure Development: build and secure containerd-based infrastructure.
• Communication Pipeline: extend data/command transmission between ETH, utilities, and energy systems.
• Databases: work with time-series DBs for high-volume ingestion and low latency queries.
• Reliability & Recovery: implement replication, backup, and disaster recovery strategies.
• Front-end Development: create Grafana dashboards and APIs for live insights.

Kenntnisse

Git

Python

Linux

Ausbildung

ETH student in Computer Science / Electrical Engineering / Power Engineering

Tools

Docker

Grafana

RabbitMQ

SQL

Jobbeschreibung

As part of Grid2050 and NCCR Automation, we are building a high-performance, secure, and fault-tolerant data infrastructure to power cutting-edge energy research. Grid2050 connects real-world electricity grid measurements, smart meter data, and actuator control into a single ecosystem for experimentation at scale.

Project background

The future smart grid features the widespread integration of distributed energy resources, introducing new challenges to infrastructure in areas such as automatic control, data management, and communication. The Internet of Things, big data technologies, and operational technology must be reliably and securely integrated to ensure smart grid operations.

We are seeking a reliable and highly motivated student assistant to support our research. In this role, you will design and develop data infrastructure to tackle real-world challenges in smart grid research, ensuring our infrastructure meets requirements in the future-such as scalability under load, resilience to failure, and adaptability to change.

The starting date is flexible but an early start is preferred.

Job description

• Infrastructure Development: Work in containerd environments, ensure the security, availability, scalability and accountability of our server.
• Communication Pipeline: Enhance and extend data and command transmission intrastructure between ETH, utilities, and energy management systems-ensuring they're reliable (think "backpressure handling" and "exactly-once" semantics) and maintainable.
• Databases: Work with time-series databse designed for high-volume ingestion and low-latency queries, and make sure they are scalable and realible under extreme scenarios.
• Reliability & Recovery: Implement replication, backup, and disaster recovery strategies-making sure the system survives faults without losing data.
• Front-end Development: Build visualization dashboards (Grafana) and remote experimentation APIs to give researchers live insight into grid behavior and improve user experiences on our platform.

Profile

• You are an ETH student enrolled in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Power Engineering, or related fields.
• You are passionate about data engineering, systems development, and energy-related topics.
• You are fluent in English. German is a plus but not mandatory.
• You are available to work approximately 8 - 15 hours per week (i.e. one or two days per week).
• You have strong expertise in Git, Python, and Linux development environments.
• Ideally, you have worked with one or some of the following fields: RabbitMQ, Grafana, SQL, Docker, and front-end development.
• You pay strong attention to details, and you work responsibly.

We offer

• Hands-on experience with real-world data infrasturcture, and distributed system design.
• Working alongside leading academics, industry partners, and a collaborative research community. Rare chance to see theory play out on a real part of our critical infrastructure.
• Flexible working conditions, state-of-the-art facilities, and remuneration according to ETH student assistant salary guidelines Stundenlohn - Staffnet | ETH Zürich.

We value diversity and sustainability

In line with our values, ETH Zurich encourages an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity and nurture a working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our Equal Opportunities and Diversity website to find out how we ensure a fair and open environment that allows everyone to grow and flourish. Sustainability is a core value for us - we are consistently working towards a climate-neutral future.

Curious? So are we.

Questions regarding the position should be directed to Hanshuo Wu ([e-mail]) (no applications).

Further information about the research group can be found on our Website.

We would like to point out that the pre-selection is carried out by the responsible recruiters and not by artificial intelligence.