Systems Engineer

Job Description:

Air Q Limited is looking for an experienced Systems Engineer to join our Mechanical R&D team in Abu Dhabi and contribute to the development of advanced Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platforms.

This is an engineering position focused on aircraft systems—not an IT Systems Engineer role.

The successful candidate will support the definition, integration, verification, and validation of complete UAV systems. The role requires close coordination between Mechanical R&D, Powertrain, Avionics, Flight Dynamics, Flight Control, Manufacturing, Assembly, Integration and Testing, Quality, and Flight Operations.

The Systems Engineer will ensure that aircraft structures, propulsion systems, avionics, electrical systems, flight-control systems, payloads, and other subsystems are correctly integrated and operate together as one complete, reliable, and maintainable UAV platform.

• Define and maintain aircraft-level and subsystem-level technical requirements.
• Translate operational, project, and customer needs into clear and testable engineering requirements.
• Develop system architecture, functional breakdowns, technical specifications, and system-level concepts.
• Allocate requirements to the relevant engineering teams and subsystems.
• Maintain full traceability between requirements, design outputs, verification activities, and test results.
• Support technical trade-off studies and system-level engineering decisions.

• Define and maintain aircraft-level and subsystem-level technical requirements.
• Translate operational, project, and customer needs into clear and testable engineering requirements.
• Develop system architecture, functional breakdowns, technical specifications, and system-level concepts.
• Allocate requirements to the relevant engineering teams and subsystems.
• Maintain full traceability between requirements, design outputs, verification activities, and test results.
• Support technical trade-off studies and system-level engineering decisions.

• Coordinate the integration of mechanical structures, propulsion systems, drivetrain components, landing gear, payloads, cooling systems, avionics, electrical systems, and flight controls.
• Define and manage mechanical, electrical, thermal, physical, and functional interfaces.
• Review installation arrangements, packaging, accessibility, maintainability, weight, and centre-of-gravity considerations.
• Identify design or interface conflicts before physical assembly and testing.
• Ensure that subsystem designs are compatible with the overall UAV architecture and performance requirements.
• Support the resolution of multidisciplinary engineering and integration issues.

• Prepare and maintain Interface Control Documents and other system-interface records.
• Coordinate interface requirements between Mechanical R&D, Powertrain, Avionics, Flight Control, Manufacturing, and Assembly, Integration and Testing teams.
• Evaluate the impact of proposed changes on connected systems, aircraft performance, safety, weight, cost, and schedule.
• Ensure that engineering changes are properly reviewed, approved, documented, and communicated.
• Support configuration management and engineering change-control activities throughout the product lifecycle.

• Participate in system requirement reviews, preliminary design reviews, critical design reviews, test-readiness reviews, and other engineering review activities.
• Review CAD assemblies, engineering drawings, calculations, technical specifications, test procedures, and engineering reports from a system-level perspective.
• Coordinate technical actions arising from design reviews and follow up until closure.
• Support engineering teams by identifying dependencies, technical risks, and system-level impacts.
• Ensure alignment between engineering design, manufacturing capability, operational requirements, project objectives, and delivery schedules.

• Conduct system-level assessments and support multidisciplinary engineering analysis.
• Coordinate with technical specialists on structural, thermal, vibration, aerodynamic, weight, balance, performance, reliability, and maintainability considerations.
• Identify technical risks, integration risks, design gaps, and potential system failures.
• Support Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis and other engineering risk-assessment activities.
• Participate in root-cause…