An employee form Maritime Optima working at his desk.

Jr. Data Engineer

As we steer our ambitious roadmap for ShipIntel feature development and analytics forward, we're looking to expand our data science team.

Who we are

Maritime Optima AS was established in 2018 and came into operation in May 2019. We aim to modernize the “office” part of the commercial shipping since most of the companies are using legacy software tools while technological developments in satellite surveillance and real-time data analysis opened the door to new levels of automation and decision support. It has become possible to create software to answer questions such as “what are my competitors doing” and “what are the most profitable contracts I can find for my vessels”.

The company is financed by the founders and shipping investors. We are developing two products: ShipIntel for professional teams and ShipAtlas for individuals. ShipAtlas has more than 450 000 registered users and the growth is strong. ShipIntel was launched in august 2024 and will be our main commercial focus in 2025.

We are 18 employees in Oslo, Athens and Singapore, most of us are working in our Oslo office in Vika Atrium. We work mostly on-site because we value the physical community and culture, and we find it to be more productive when working on complex exploratory challenges. Even though we are in our 5th year of operation, it is still very much a startup vibe here, the whole crew being extremely enthusiastic about what we do.

The tech team is currently 10 people, a mix of backend, frontend and data science. We organize ourselves according to the scrum framework, to handle multiple complex areas: global vessel tracking and real-time analysis, vessel routing and prediction, live position list, voyage calculations etc.

Role overview

We are seeking a Junior Data Engineer to join our tech team. In this role, you will apply your data wrangling, data engineering, machine learning, and software development skills to build and maintain our core data pipelines and modeling efforts. You will contribute to projects ranging from vessel parameter prediction to cargo flow analysis, and from generating specialized spatial datasets to improving models that predict vessel destinations.

Key responsibilities

Data Ingestion, Data Wrangling

  • Systemize vessel data acquisition from structured and unstructured sources.
  • Transform data using Pandas and/or PySpark, ensuring data quality and consistency before integration into our Databricks environment.

Geospatial Data Management

  • Work closely with QGIS and custom PyQGIS scripts to maintain and improve our custom geospatial dataset for ports, berths, anchorages, etc.
  • Generate specialized data sets, such as banned areas, by classifying H3 cells and merging spatial data from multiple sources.
  • Collaborate with the team to refine manual processes and automate geospatial dataset generation where possible.

Data Quality & Maintenance

  • Troubleshoot and debug data issues, performing manual curation when necessary.
  • Contribute to data storage and retrieval solutions that support real-time and batch processing.
  • Contribute to PySpark data pipelines on Databricks, ensuring they run reliably and efficiently.

Predictive Modeling & Analysis

  • Contribute to Machine Learning (ML) models for vessel parameter prediction, vessel destination prediction, and cargo flow analysis.
  • Evaluate model performance, track metrics, and iterate rapidly to improve accuracy and reliability.

Qualifications

Technical Expertise

  • Proven track record with data wrangling tasks, leveraging columnar transformations in Pandas or similar data manipulation packages.
  • Familiarity with Spark or similar big data processing frameworks.

Geospatial & Big Data Processing

  • Prior experience with QGIS or other GIS tools is advantageous.
  • Hands-on experience with big data processing on Databricks is a plus.

ML & Analytics

  • Solid understanding of classical ML (boosted regression tree models, regression, clustering) and familiarity with implementation details of deep learning networks.
  • Comfortable iterating on models based on feature engineering and model evaluation metrics.

Soft Skills

  • Strong analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities.
  • Willingness to handle both automated and manual dataset generation tasks.
  • Great collaborative skills necessary for working in a cross-disciplinary team with backend, frontend, data scientists, and commercial people.
  • Excellent communication skills.
  • Professional working proficiency in English, preferably also Norwegian.

What can we offer?

At Maritime Optima you will find highly competent and passionate colleagues, and you will be working on innovative new technologies. We solve complex problems for the maritime industry.

You will play a key part in helping the company grow, help shape the business and take part in the team's decision making.

  • Competitive terms, including insurance and pension schemes, and share options.
  • Career development opportunities as we scale.
  • Ample opportunities for growth and learning, both on the job and through organized sessions.
  • Modern, bright, spacious offices in Vika Atrium.
  • High-quality personal equipment.
  • Free, excellent lunch made by our own cook.
  • Free gym in the building, newly refurbished.
  • Friendly social environment and a skilled team with high spirits.


To apply for this position, send your CV and cover letter to this email: simen@maritimeoptima.com

We look forward to hearing from you!

Contact us about this position

Simen Omholt-Jensen

Data Scientist

simen@maritimeoptima.com
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