Data Engineering & AI Architecture Internship
🔍 Netherlands
For more than 75 years, NATO’s mission has been to preserve peace and security in the Alliance for nearly one billion citizens. The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) is NATO’s technology and cyber hub. We are a team of 3000 civilian and military staff, working together to connect all corners of NATO and maintain its Edge from 30 locations across the Alliance.
We are a key partner in NATO's Digital Transformation, working hand in hand with industry to provide technical solutions and expertise, facilitating political consultations and decision-making, and enabling multi-domain operations.
Our experts provide secure static and deployable communications infrastructure, satellite communications and information technology services, connected the Alliance’s forces, and strengthening NATO’s defence and deterrence posture. Fulfilling NCIA’s missions is possible because of our greatest force, our people. In order to reinforce NATO’s edge, we aim to hire, train and retain the very best staff.
Our staff members represent both the diversity and unity of our Alliance. When you join NCIA, you will be part of an organization where you can contribute authentically to the mission and purpose of NATO and help us ensure seamless connectivity among Allied partner nations.
About the Program
The NCIA internship is a 6-month program based at one of our key hubs in The Netherlands, Belgium or Portugal. Our internship opportunities start from either 1 March or 1 September with the start date being dependent on the timeline to secure the required security clearance to work within the NATO community. During an internship, you will join and support a diverse international team and simultaneously learn from our experts via on-the-job training, working independently on purposeful projects or initiatives during your tenure.
About the Internship
Internship duration: 6 months
Location: The Hague, Netherlands
The Chief Technology Office (CTO) is the key enabler of NATO’s digital transformation. This office is a cornerstone for the NCI Agency’s work to advance NATO’s information communications technologies (ICT) that are critical to maintain NATO’s technological edge. With NCI Agency's scientists, architects and engineers, CTO is the hub for architecting and designing NATO’s ICT technical landscape while considering innovation, standardization, and coherence across the Alliance.
During your internship, you will be expected to work on the data architecture for different projects and propose solutions involving Data Mesh, Data Fabric, and Lakehouse architectures.
The selected intern will contribute to the following duties:
· Contribute to the overall data architecture of various projects and develop big data processing pipelines in both Azure Cloud and air-gapped on-premises environments.
· You will also create and maintain data pipelines using big data processing techniques such as Spark, Kubernetes, and distributed databases.
· Additionally, you will be responsible for monitoring data quality and reporting related information to stakeholders.
About you:
The valuable knowledge and experience that you bring to this role is:
Data Engineering
Assist in developing and implementing data pipelines and data stores.
Performs administrative tasks to provide accessibility, retrievability, security and protection of data.
Programming/software development
Designs, codes, verifies, tests, documents, amends and refactors simple programs/scripts.
Applies agreed standards and tools to achieve a well-engineered result.
Reviews own work.
Machine Learning:
Applies given machine learning techniques to data, under the guidance of technical leadership.
Analyses and reports findings and remediates simple issues using algorithms implemented in standard software frameworks and tools.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible to apply for our internship program, you will need to meet the following criteria:
· You are a national of a NATO member country
· You are currently studying towards a university-level degree or have recently graduated in the past 12 months
· A thorough knowledge of one of the two NATO languages, both written and spoken, is essential and some knowledge of the other is desirable. Most of the work of the NCI Agency is conducted in the English language.
We also request that you please attach the following documents to your application form:
· Copy of the university degree you have completed and/or
· Proof of ongoing studies with the dates clearly mentioned if you are still studying
Application Process:
The application process for an internship at NCIA is:
Ø Apply via the NCIA Careers site by 23:59 CET 16th March 2025
Ø If selected to progress to the first stage evaluation this will consist of a logic, numeracy and behavioral gamification exercises in addition to on-demand video questions aligned to the requirements of the internship
Ø Virtual interviews will take place in the month of April
Ø Tentative offer to be presented to successful candidates in early May
Compensation
Netherlands
You will be compensated at a fixed taxable rate of 1,424.59 EUR per month, based on 38 hours of work per week and for reasonable travel expenses to start on day 1 and to return to your home location once the internship is complete.
Thank you for your patience while we consider your application. To learn more about NCIA and our work, please visit our website.
NCIA prides itself on being an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment of mutual respect and value uniqueness and differences in gender, gender identity, race, ethnic or cultural origin, age, religion, sexual orientation and physical or neurocognitive ability.
Additional details on the conditions of application can be found via the NCIA career site.