Lead Systems Engineer

Lead Systems Engineer

An opportunity has arisen for a Lead Systems Engineer within Thales OME, the role can be based in Reading or Glasgow and depending on the specific project the role may require some travel and time spent at other Thales sites, customer sites or integration and test facilities.

As a Lead Systems Engineer you will be responsible for leading the systems design activities throughout the engineering project lifecycle involving:

• Definition of the technical solution, including requirements elicitation and decomposition, and architecture from Operational Concepts through to Solution Architecture
• Definition, management and de-risking of the interfaces through and between the system functional chains
• Definition of the interfaces between the solution and the solution elements
• Upfront Integration, Validation, Verification and Qualification (IVVQ) activities to support the IVVQ Manager and supporting IVVQ throughout the lifecycle
• Design trades offs to establish an optimal design, ensuring that key design decisions are made, captured and communicated across all of the project stakeholders to meet the schedule demands
• Leading de-risk activities to explore solution designs and functionality, and to identify potential risk areas during IVVQ and sell-off
• Collaborating across all disciplines for the complete solution design
• Coherence of low level design to system design o alignment of technical dependencies across the other disciplines and business areas
• Understanding of technical assumptions and constraints
• Identification of technical risks and their mitigations

The Lead Engineer will be the primary systems engineering interface to the Project Design Authority (PDA) and will maintain the overall system compliance to both the customer requirements and product line requirements.

The individual will be able to demonstrate the following to align to the Thales leadership behaviours model:

• A self-starter, with an ability to manage their own workload and meet their agreed objectives, whilst also contributing to the development and delivery of wider project goals
• Can master several co-engineering techniques to draw on multiple perspectives and sources to better understand and solve problems
• Proven ability to lead a team to pursue feasible solutions with respect to deadlines, cost and quality
• Able to provide real-time coaching to other systems engineers on the project to support their technical development
• Capable of collaborating and interfacing with various stakeholders, both internal and external, in order to ensure the cohesion of the solution design objectives
• Understand how to simplify and break down complex problems, prioritising design decisions and design collaboration

This role will report to the Discipline Manger for Systems Engineering.

This role will require SC Clearance. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant will undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance. Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance.

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

For further details of the evidence required to apply for Baseline and Security Clearance please refer to the National Security Vetting (NSV) Agency – United Kingdom Security Vetting – GOV.UK (

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