Engineering & Technology Internships
Get hands-on experience in your field of study with an engineering and technology internship at ESO!
Engineers design, build, and operate ESO’s advanced ground-based astronomical facilities, and we want to give young engineers the opportunity to work on research and development (R&D) at the cutting-edge of engineering and astronomy. Every year we offer up to four internships for engineering or STEM students during their master’s (or equivalent level) studies.
As an intern, you’ll have the chance to apply your studies in a professional setting, work within a team of experts in your field, and complete your own project. Your internship project can be either for or outside of your master’s thesis. You can find the complete list of internship projects further down this page.
Internships take place at ESO Headquarters in Garching bei München, Germany (a remote or hybrid internship is not possible) and have full-time hours. Internships last for five to six months, though a duration of four months may be considered for students attending vocational schools. You will receive a monthly allowance of €800 to cover your living expenses, accommodation in a shared apartment for the duration of your internship, and we cover the cost of a return trip from/to your home station.
- You are pursuing a master’s (or equivalent level) degree in engineering or STEM, and you must remain enrolled as a student during the internship.
- You study in, or are a national of, an ESO Member State.
- You are ready to take an active part in the ESO R&D projects with a good deal of team spirit, curiosity and eagerness to learn.
- You have a good ability to understand and communicate in English (oral and written).
If you meet all these criteria, we look forward to your application!
- We offer a broad range of engineering research subjects and professional experience at the forefront of ground-based astronomy and technology.
- We are an international organisation, attracting a diverse range of passionate, talented, and collaborative people.
- We have a multi-disciplinary and high-tech work environment, situated next to the best German universities and world-renowned research centres.
- We are building the largest optical telescope on Earth, the Extremely Large Telescope, and operate world-leading observatories: La Silla, Paranal and ALMA.
R&D at ESO encompasses many fields of engineering, and internship projects from previous years have covered:
- Optical engineering
- Mechanical engineering
- Cryogenic engineering
- Adaptive optics and laser guide stars
- Electronic engineering
- Software engineering
We have practical- and research-based projects to suit to students from both vocational schools and universities.
Internship projects for 2027 are listed below.
Topic area |
Title |
Supervisor(s) |
Large language models / data analysis |
Local large language models for engineering workflows |
Arseniy Kuznetsov |
VLT turbulent environment characterization |
Miska Le Louarn |
|
Real time computing / control software |
LLM-assisted porting of legacy SPARTA code towards the RTC Toolkit for ELT RTCs |
Pavel Shchekaturov, Bogdan Jeram |
Modernization of RTC Data Recording Technologies |
Josef Hofer |
|
A neural-network inference core for AO real-time computers: latency and jitter benchmark against the SPARTA MVM |
Pavel Shchekaturov (ESO, SPARTA and ELT RTC team) |
|
Using AI (agents) to develop SRTC SW based on RTC Toolkit |
Bogdan Jeram (RTC toolkit team) |
|
The RTC Toolkit Control and Monitor engineering GUI |
Bogdan Jeram, Josef Hofer, Artur Szostak |
|
RTC Toolkit distributed timestamp datapoints |
Bogdan Jeram, Josef Hoffer |
|
Evaluation of TwinCAT PLC++ and Migration to Linux-Based PLC Platforms |
Mario Kiekebusch |
|
Optical engineering / adaptive optics |
Using deep learning for optical misalignment diagnostics in large telescopes |
Johannes Kolmeder |
First Data from the ELT Phasing and Diagnostic Station |
Aglae Kellerer, Oliver Pfuhl |
|
Mechanical engineering |
Mechanical design of the ELT Azimuth bridge carriage |
Ronald Guzman, Juan Carlos Palacio |
Modelling, analysis and test support related to vibration and control/structure interaction for the ELT telescope structure and hosted units |
Michael Mueller, Pablo Zuluaga Ramirez
|
|
Supporting ESO/ELT Digitalisation through Automated BIM Information Management and Quality Assurance |
Paulo Ferreira |
|
ALMA / radio techniques |
System-Level Architectural Exploration of Future Radio Astronomy DSP Backends |
Amit Vishwas, Eric Villard, Carlos Duran, Carlos De Breuck, Maria Diaz Trigo |
Python migration of the ALMA Bias Module Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) software |
Paz Alonso Arias |
|
Development of Cryostat Window Technologies for ALMA Band 10 |
Paz Alonso Arias |
Note that some internship projects have the potential to extend to a PhD studentship project, subject to another competitive application. See our PhD studentships for more information.
Check out our recruitment portal in October for a vacancy called “Engineering Internship – Garching”. The vacancy is open until late November, and internships can begin in February or later.
Applications must be completed in English and should include:
- A cover letter (max one page) detailing your motivation for the internship at ESO, which internship project(s) you would like to choose and why, noting any relevant previous study, experience, or interests, and the desired period of the internship.
- Your CV with an outline of your technical/practical experience, a list of publications, if any.
- The names and contact details of three persons who we could contact as reference.
If you have any further questions, please contact: vacancy@eso.org.