Environmental Test Engineer – Drone Systems in London

Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership, so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards. As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously.

We are an ambitious and committed team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers. We are looking for mission-driven people to join our European teams – and apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology in defence, its benefits, and its ethical implications.

As an Environment Test Engineer, you will be responsible for the design, execution, and analysis of environmental stress test campaigns across the full range of drone sub-systems and Ground Support Equipment (GSE). As a generalist within the Environmental Cluster, you will apply your knowledge to mechanical, thermal, and environmental qualification—across multiple hardware domains. The Environmental Cluster is the "Physical Reality" team within the Test Department. Where other clusters validate functionality, the Environmental Cluster validates survivability and performance under real-world stress.

The cluster is organized around domain specialists—Launch Systems, Ground Communication Systems—but requires a generalist backbone to ensure test coverage continuity across all sub-systems, absorb campaign overflows from specialist engineers, and extend the cluster's capability into emerging and sensitive hardware domains.

The day-to-day:

• Vibration & Shock Campaigns: Designing and executing vibration test campaigns (sine sweep, random vibration, shock) on drone sub-systems and GSE hardware to simulate transport, operational, and launch-induced dynamic environments.
• Thermal Soak & Cycling: Executing controlled thermal exposure tests across the full operational temperature range on any sub-system assigned by the Head of Testing or cluster lead.
• IP & Ingress Testing: Executing dust and water ingress tests on drone enclosures, connectors, and GSE hardware to validate field survivability.
• Humidity, Salt Spray & Corrosion: Running humidity-controlled and salt-spray campaigns to identify corrosion risks in connectors, structural joints, and electronic housings.
• Altitude Simulation: Validating component behaviour under simulated low-pressure conditions relevant to the operational altitude range of the drone.
• Fatigue & Endurance: Running high-cycle mechanical campaigns to characterize material and joint fatigue over the required operational life of any assigned sub-system.
• Failure Mode Boundary Testing: Deliberately pushing hardware beyond its design limits to physically map the failure envelope and validate safety margins across all assigned sub-systems.

You should apply if you have:

• Environmental Standards Literacy: Working knowledge of applicable standards as the primary frameworks for environmental test campaign design and execution.
• Instrumentation & DAQ: Expert in physical instrumentation—strain gauges, accelerometers, thermocouples, pressure transducers, and load cells. Ability to configure and operate DAQ systems across a wide range of test scenarios.
• Mechanical Systems Understanding: Solid understanding of structural mechanics, material fatigue, vibration dynamics, and shock response for both metallic and composite structures.
• Thermal Testing: Experience with thermal chambers, thermal cycling rigs, IR cameras, and thermocouple mapping.
• Environmental Test Equipment Operation: Hands-on experience operating vibration tables, shock rigs, thermal chambers, IP spray equipment, and salt-spray cabinets.
• Metrology: Proficient with precision measurement tools (load frames, calipers, torque meters, dimensional gauges) for pre- and post-test validation.
• Basic Familiarity with Weapons Hardware Constraints: Understanding of the physical and regulatory constraints that govern the environmental testing of defense-related hardware.

Nice to Have:

• Bachelor's degree (B.Sc. or B.Eng.) in a relevant engineering discipline.
• Direct experience with environmental chamber operation, vibration testing, and physical instrumentation is mandatory.
• Prior exposure to defense, dual-use, or regulated hardware in a test context is strongly preferred.
• Experience in an aerospace or defense environment operating under ITAR/EAR or equivalent national defense export control frameworks is an advantage.

Join Helsing and work with world-leading experts in their fields. Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns. The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world.

Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defence industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward. In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities.

Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts. We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about.

What we offer:

• Competitive salary and VSOP options.
• Relocation support: up to €2,500 and 4 weeks temporary accommodation.
• Learning: €500/£450 yearly allowance.
• Health & wellness: gym membership and mental health support (Nilo.health).
• Social: regular company events and monthly social allowances.
• Enhanced parental leave: 22 weeks fully paid for primary caregivers & 6 weeks for secondary caregivers.
• Family support: 5 days of paid family emergency leave, 100% remote work option during pregnancy and phased return to work.
• A hands-on onboarding program (affectionately labelled “Infraduction”), in which you will be building tooling and applications to be used across the company.

Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity.