Image Processing: AI-Assisted Tools for Calval Intern

Location: Toulouse office, city center (Jeanne d’Arc metro station)
Duration: 6-month, end-of-studies internship — target start date: early 2027.

About this role:

Review DSNU, radiometric calibration, and relevant EVP processing and CAL/VAL practices.
Work with EVP engineers to identify suitable routine images, metadata, and reference calibration data; document data limitations and provenance.
Prepare a reproducible dataset and establish reference baselines, including a holdout evaluation strategy that avoids tuning and testing on the same acquisitions.
Implement a baseline estimator: a data-fit term combined with a regularizing prior.
Investigate additional AI/ML methods only where suitable training or validation data are available; compare them against the baseline rather than assuming they are superior.
Evaluate correction quality, residual fixed-pattern structure, stability across images, runtime, and failure cases.
Package the workflow as a prototype script or notebook with plots, quality checks, and an auditable record of inputs, parameters, and outputs.
Present findings and recommendations to EVP and CAL/VAL stakeholders; document what evidence would be needed before operational use.
The intern will gain experience in:
Radiometric calibration and CAL/VAL for space-based optical imaging.
Push-broom image characteristics and PRNU/DSNU correction.
Applied optimization and, where appropriate, machine learning for image processing.
Experimental design, reference-data limitations, and quantitative performance assessment.
Building reproducible engineering tools and communicating technical evidence to mission teams.

Must Haves:

• Student in engineering, applied physics, remote sensing, image processing, data science, or a related field.
• Fundamentals of signal or image processing and a strong interest in Earth observation.
• Basic programming skills in Python and comfort working with scientific data.
• Analytical mindset, rigor, and ability to document assumptions and limitations.
• Interest in calibration, validation, sensor behavior, or image quality assessment.

Nice to Haves:

• Exposure to satellite imagery or remote-sensing data.
• Experience with optimization, statistical estimation, or machine-learning evaluation.
• Familiarity with image-analysis libraries and scientific Python tools.
• Understanding of radiometric calibration or data-quality assessment.

What Can We Offer?

You will join a stimulating environment, surrounded by passionate engineers, conducive to learning, innovation, and personal and professional development — and help build the future of space infrastructure. With a growing fleet on track to reach 30 satellites by 2027, we are scaling up quickly across our offices in San Francisco, USA | Golden, USA | and Toulouse, France.

Some of our awesome internship benefits:
Gratification: €1,300 gross/month.
Lunch vouchers (tickets restaurant), because let's be honest, we love food! (we even have a Slack channel about it: #loft-gourmand)
Sustainable mobility package (forfait mobilité durable).
A genuinely international environment comprising 20+ different nationalities.
A genuine mentoring program to support you on a daily basis throughout the internship.