Senior Systems Engineer

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Maneuver Dominance team is building Thunder - an autonomous attack rotorcraft built to fight alongside crewed combat aviation to deliver overwhelming mass effects deep beyond the front lines. The team in London builds the Mission System and the Autonomy that makes aircraft like Thunder work.

A mission system is only a system if the parts agree. Thunder's payloads and subsystems are being developed in parallel, across teams and across companies, onto an air vehicle that is moving underneath them. The decomposition, the interfaces, and the evidence that it all works together are what hold that together. That is the problem you would own.

ABOUT THE JOB

We are looking for a Senior Systems Engineer to join us in London and lead capability development on Thunder. You will bring pragmatic systems engineering thinking to complement and enhance the overall mission system capability, ensuring end-user needs are met in challenging operational environments. You will be part of a lean, high-ownership culture where you directly shape the product and operate at a velocity to fly new designs within months, not years.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Execute a right-sized, Agile Systems Engineering approach as per the Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP) for development of the Thunder Mission System and Payloads at the speed of relevance
• Support design teams in the evolution and progress of Technical Performance Measures (TPMs) throughout the design process
• Contribute to System Design Reviews (SDR) and engineering governance structures such as Preliminary Design Reviews (PDR), Critical Design Reviews (CDR), Test Readiness Reviews (TRR), Safety Review Boards (SRB) representing the Systems Engineering discipline
• Own and maintain Functional Decomposition, System Breakdown Structure (SBS), Product Breakdown Structure (PBS), and Architecture diagrams
• Develop key Systems Engineering design artefacts including System Description Documents (SDDs) and Interface Control Documents (ICDs)
• Champion the use of the Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP) to enable Mission System and Payload maturation
• Shape the design of representative Hardware In Lab (HIL) and Hardware In The Loop (HITL) physical integration environments, and input into surrogate testing
• Create issue board workflows and coordinate ticket triage, action assignment, artefact capture and closure
• Shape and coordinate configuration and change management processes
• Support wholistic Systems Safety and Airworthiness efforts
• Support build, ground and flight test of prototype and production representative Thunder Mission Systems with Physical Configuration Audits (PCA) and verification-related tasks

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• BEng/BSc/MEng in Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical, Computer Science, Robotics, Mechatronics, or a similar engineering field, or equivalent experience
• 8+ years industry Systems Engineering experience including safety-critical hardware and software systems in the Defence or Aerospace industries, specifically crewed aircraft, rotorcraft, EVTOL, UAS or weapon systems with a focus on Payload Integration, Vehicle Management Systems, GNC or Autonomy.
• Demonstrable Systems Engineering proficiency, including solicitation of requirements with the customer/end-user, collaboration with design teams
• Experience developing traditional and right-sized Systems Engineering artefacts, including pragmatic verification and validation plans
• Deep understanding of the test and evaluation process as applicable to developmental, acceptance and operational testing
• Experience with crewed or uncrewed developmental autonomous aircraft (Group 5 UAS or larger)
• Proficiency in coordinating change management processes
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills to include presentation of developed artefacts
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active UKSV Security Clearance

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience with open mission system architectures, for example PYRAMID, OMS/UCI, or STANAG 4586, and with modular open systems approaches more generally
• Experience with mission systems integration across multiple platforms, including abstraction layers or payload development kits intended for reuse
• Experience with SysML v2, and with requirements management tooling such as Jama, including automated generation of specification and traceability artefacts
• Working knowledge of UK export control and security regimes, including the UK Military List, SPIRE and OGELs, F680, and the handling of classified and OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE material
• Exposure to guidelines, standards and processes such as ARP-4754, ARP-4761, DO-178C, DO-254 desirable
• Experience with UK defence standards relevant to air systems and stores, for example Def Stan 00-970 and Def Stan 00-56
• Experience transitioning technology out of development and into a delivery programme or product line
• Familiarity with rigorous Systems Engineering approaches such as OOSEM
• Familiarity with reliability engineering, safety analysis, and failure mode analysis
• INCOSE Systems Engineering Professional certification