Space Optical Comms Systems Engineer

Are you a Systems Engineer who loves contributing to the UKs Defence Industry and making impactful change? Leonardo has a fantastic opportunity for an Engineer to work on the modelling of airborne Free Space Optical Communication systems. You will be working on real Engineering problems, designing and developing solutions that sit at the heart of our products.

• Build an optical laboratory for investigating the performance of optical communication systems
• Build and maintain MATLAB models of optical-based airborne communication systems
• Investigate new approaches to achieve the customer’s requirements
• Guide the development of free-space optical communication systems
• Discuss the experiments and results internally and with external stakeholders including customers, external partners and subcontractors
• Work cooperatively with subcontractors and international partners to achieve a common solution
• Assemble, integrate and test subsystems
• Provide input to a proposal to create an internationally recognised standard for Optical Communications

Successful candidates will have a strong technical background in an engineering, physics or maths-based subject.

• Lasers
• Modulators
• Detectors
• Optical Amplifiers
• Wavelength filters
• Polarisation controllers

Experience working in an optical laboratory, ideally with experience in aligning free‑space setups and coupling into optical fibres.

Experience with model development in a high-level programming language.

The ability to perform rigorous analysis independently and confidently present the results internally and externally.

• MATLAB
• Software engineering techniques, such as test development and version control (git)
• Laboratory automation
• Digital Modulation, Channel coding, and other aspects of the physical layer of a communication system
• Assessing the performance of optical communication systems considering the SNR, BER and bandwidth limitations
• Development of free-space optical communication systems for deployment in field environments
• Resiliency strategies and techniques in free-space optical communications
• Working as a member of a large team in developing complex engineered systems
• Understanding of the optomechanical considerations for field deployment of optical systems

Successful candidates will be UK nationals. This role is subject to pre‑employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personnel Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV) may apply, which could include meeting the eligibility requirements for the Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). For more information and guidance please visit

Primary

Location:

GB - Southampton
Contract Type:
Permanent
Hybrid Working:
Hybrid