Lead Systems Engineer

Are you a detail-oriented Lead Systems Engineer passionate about autonomous and uncrewed systems like drones? About Us

At Archangel Autonomy, we deploy AI and robotics to protect service personnel, critical infrastructure, and first responders in large, remote areas. Our mission is to make machines smart enough to become competent teammates instead of just tools, working alongside society’s most exposed workers in remote and challenging locations to protect people, infrastructure, assets and planet at scale.

In this role you'll report to the CTO and work with the tech team and Project Manager to drive the design and delivery of innovative UXV co-pilot systems. You’ll define system requirements, architecture, and modelling letting us push the boundaries of autonomous systems.

This position plays a crucial role in delivering reliable, game-changing solutions to end users. Each feature release brings us closer to transforming the future of autonomous technology. This is your opportunity to accelerate your career while shaping the next generation of intelligent systems.

Build out system architecture and technical direction for this new product which draws from our existing products but requires complete system definition:

• Define system architecture, CONOPS, and top-level requirements
• Lead technology selection decisions and trade studies
• Establish and manage system performance budgets across subsystems
• Decide on system interfaces and integration strategies
• Serve as technical authority in customer and certification discussions
• Own the technical baseline that informs future product development

Create a new systems engineering process for our team to use by demonstrating it on the product described above.

• Develop a minimum viable systems engineering practice, balancing rigour and speed
• Implement requirements management and interface control that teams adopt naturally because they see it working
• Pioneer AI-augmented workflows within Systems Engineering
• Help ensure design documentation is coherent, consistent, visible, reviewed and verified in its implementation
• Build traceability frameworks connecting requirements, design and verification
• Guide junior engineers in building systems engineering tools that integrate with developer workflows

• 5+ years in systems engineering for complex systems with full product lifecycle exposure (from concept through to supported products in the field)
• Proven track record of taking design authority and making authoritative technical decisions on complex systems
• Experience shipping real products, ideally with high assurance requirements (e.g. DO-178, DO-254, ISO 26262, or equivalent)
• Experience establishing engineering processes in growing organisations (ideally smaller companies with broad exposure, not narrow areas of work within large organisations)
• Working knowledge of product security standards and quality compliance frameworks (ISO 27001, AS 9100, ISO 9001, etc.)
• Practical, hands‑on experience with both hardware and software system integration
• Strong technical judgement to make pragmatic trade‑offs, balancing startup speed with necessary rigour
• Demonstrated interest in AI tooling and keenness to pioneer new approaches rather than follow traditional methods

Demonstrable experience with drone and UAVs, autonomous systems, or complex systems generally will align well with what we need for this role. Please highlight these in your application or when talking to our team:

• Designing drones/UAV systems through full development lifecycle
• Understanding of safety cases, airworthiness standards, and UAV certification processes
• MOD or defence customer experience
• Background in navigation systems, sensor fusion, or perception for autonomous systems

• Autonomous vehicles and robotics (Ocado, Arrival, Amazon Robotics, Dyson)
• Missile/weapons systems, with focus on the navigation subsystem