Senior R&D Engineer (Tools and Methodologies)

The salary for this role is £57,117 (inclusive of a Specialist Allowance). Onsite working is expected for 3 days minimum each week, however, we actively support requests for flexible working. This role is based at the following site: Culham, Oxfordshire. This role requires employees to complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions and possibly a search of open source data.

As a Senior R&D Engineer (Tools and Methodologies), you will play a pivotal role in UKAEA’s test rigs and facilities projects, developing and applying best practice tools and methodologies to enable successful delivery of engineering solutions to high impact fusion problems. You will work closely with engineering and science teams to support adoption of the most appropriate approaches to maximising value from testing and from verification and validation activities – providing training, facilitating workshops, preparing guidance material and generally championing best practice. The teams in which you will work will be highly cross-disciplinary and will involve supporting systems engineers to ensure that the needs of programmes are being met.

Key Accountabilities:

• Provide strategic leadership in the use of appropriate tools and methodologies to design and development teams, including establishment of mechanisms to enable the dissemination of guidance material on their selection and use.
• Develop and adapt new tools and methodologies for testing, verification and validation, and technology development; including proposing appropriate related research projects.
• Expand your own network through seeking out work with external collaborators (including universities, public sector research establishments and industry in fusion and related fields) creating links to complement UKAEA’s internal capability, offering access to additional expert knowledge and to facilitate new project proposals.
• Use your own initiative to identify opportunities for high impact transfer of relevant best practice or technologies from non-fusion sources and following up by performing relevant research and preparing project proposals.
• Proactively identify and co-ordinate work packages for development of junior team members, including industrial placement students, graduates and apprentices.

Essential Requirements:

• An experienced practitioner of best practice engineering and organisational tools (e.g. Robust Engineering (FMEAs, P-Diagrams etc.), Six Sigma, Systems Engineering, TQM etc.)
• Degree or higher (or equivalent training/experience) in engineering, physics, chemistry, technology or similar science
• Highly self-motivated and demonstrates initiative
• Demonstrable ability to manage R&D work packages
• Strong verbal and written communication and stakeholder management skills
• Experience in a (project or otherwise) leadership role

We welcome talented people from all backgrounds who want to help us achieve our mission. We encourage applications from under-represented groups, particularly from women in STEM, people from Black British Caribbean and African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi British, and other ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and neurotypical individuals. Our Executive team, supported by our 'Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' (EDI) and Wellbeing and our EDI Networks actively promote Inclusion and takes steps to increase diversity within our organisation. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.

Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.