Principal​/Lead Systems Engineer

Job Description

Are you a Systems Engineer who loves contributing to the UKs Defence Industry and making impactful change? We are recruiting for a Lead/Principal Systems Engineer in our growing Precision Guidance team, working on real engineering problems, designing and developing solutions that sit at the heart of our products.

As the Principal Systems Engineer you will support the execution of Systems Engineering capability and improvement matters across the Business Areas, providing proactive guidance to senior stakeholders on Systems Thinking and Methods for adoption that aligns with successful project execution.

What we build is exciting, interesting, challenging and complex. A diverse product portfolio of technologies, with each programme at a different stage in its development lifecycle.

The focus of this role is the execution of systems engineering activities, and in supporting & providing expertise to ensure:

• Our systems engineering team assess the problem completely
• Our teams reuse techniques and artefacts across the portfolio of projects
• Our teams manage complexity through architecting our systems well
• Our teams predict and mitigate emergent behaviours when operating at a system or integrated systems level
• Our projects create and enact the correct verification and validation strategy

You will be able to demonstrate passion for your trade by instilling a systems‑thinking approach based on experience forming and leading high performing teams. You will be able to influence those you work with, thrive in dynamic environments, demonstrate resilience when faced with adversity and be able to make decisions quickly under pressure while setting a clear technical vision for the project team.

Given the extensive people engagement nature of the work, we are still able to offer custom working that allows for a combination of home and on‑site working – i.e. flexible working delivering effective results. Day to day duties include:

• Influence the development of Engineering artefacts, their technical direction and ultimately stakeholder satisfaction
• You will work across a highly demanding and complex area of the business, immersed in full‑scale development programmes spanning the breadth of the engineering lifecycle across Precision Guidance
• Act as the focal point for systems engineering governance on the project
• Provide expertise and guidance to ensure our engineers understand the problem completely and stakeholder needs through effective coaching on Systems Engineering practices (early and later lifecycle stages)
• Ensure the appropriate level of concepting, modelling and simulation techniques are used across the lifecycle to inform architectures and solution options
• Influence whole‑life design considerations relating to Safety, Security, Manufacture, Test, Supportability, Through Life Support in line with company processes
• Represent Leonardo within Systems Engineering bodies and groups of interest, such as INCOSE
• Promote an agile mindset to systems engineering, building a culture of experimentation and failing fast
• Collaborate with your peers in similar roles across the UK to promote a culture of continual learning and improvement, acting as a change agent for systems engineering

You will have proven experience as a Lead or Principal Engineer (or role with similar responsibilities), with the following attributes:

• Experience in applying governance and guidance on Systems Engineering LCM process
• Experience working in Integrated Project Teams delivering Engineering artefacts successfully
• Experience in managing and collaborating with internal/external stakeholders
• Proven leadership and decision‑making skills in a high complexity, dynamic environment
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, proven ability to build trust and respect at different levels
• Motivation, tenacity and determination, with a desire to deliver outputs and results

The following experience/skills are very desirable:

• Experience in deriving Stakeholder Needs to Solution Domain Functions and Constraints – evidencing trade‑off decisions across multiple concepts.
• Experience with Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and Model…