Onboard Systems Lead Engineer in Hinckley

Design the systems that make guest experiences unforgettable by taking technical ownership of onboard entertainment systems for ride vendors. As an Onboard Systems Lead Engineer at Holovis, you’ll lead the engineering and integration of audio, lighting, and interactivity packages onto vehicles and other moving objects, working closely with ride vendors and theme park owners to ensure the technical and creative intent of a project is met.

Who This Role Is For

You’ll thrive in this role if you:

• Have strong experience designing and integrating onboard systems (such as audio, lighting, sensors, interactive elements) in ride vehicles or other mobile/harsh operating environments.
• Can lead integration from concept through to construction design, making clear trade-offs around guest-facing performance (audio quality, lighting effects, interactivity), reliability, maintainability, weight/space constraints and cost.
• Set the standard for documentation quality, producing and reviewing schematics, wiring/harness drawings, mounting details, specifications, BOMs and installation build packs.
• Enjoy leading day-to-day technical coordination, working with project management, ride vendors, and cross-functional engineering teams through fabrication, installation, commissioning and handover.

Backgrounds we often see succeed:

• Onboard vehicle systems engineering, applying the same vehicle-integration mindset found in industries such as automotive, aerospace, rail, defence, marine, and other harsh-environment platforms.

Technical Expectations

What you’ll need coming in:

• Proven experience owning end-to-end onboard systems solutions (for similar applications).
• Ability to create, refine and review requirements and build documentation, ensuring consistency and standards across internal teams and ride vendors.
• Confidence producing and signing-off system specifications and interface control documentation, including power delivery, wayside charging interfaces, and wayside communication systems.
• Strong planning skills, balancing multiple priorities, managing technical risk, and supporting delivery to scope, schedule and budget.

What you’ll learn here:

• How to work effectively with themed entertainment ride vendors (including roller coaster and dark ride manufacturers).
• Holovis HPMS documentation and stringent client standards and workflows.
• How wayside show systems intersect with onboard audio, lighting, and interactivity to create robust, synchronised guest experiences.

Core Responsibilities

• Lead the creation and refinement of requirements, concept, schematic and detailed design packages for onboard systems, including audio, lighting and interactivity architectures, vibration, component selection, signal/control interfaces, and vehicle integration constraints.
• Own documentation quality through installation covering wiring/harnessing, grounding/bonding, mechanical mounting, labelling, and service procedures suitable for ride vendor build and site support.
• Create and approve audio-focused onboard designs, covering amplification, loudspeaker selection, and media playback/show-control interfaces (e.g., Alcorn McBride, Simon Kaloi or equivalent) to meet the attraction’s technical and creative intent.
• Own and drive the project test strategy by creating verification & validation plans that cover guest-facing performance, electrical safety, vibration and integration testing on vehicle builds (including FAT/SAT).
• Partner with ride vendors, partners and owners to ensure smooth delivery from design through commissioning.

Practical details

• Able to travel to client sites globally.
• Able to effectively work across time zones.

How You’ll Work

You’ll be hands-on and collaborative, balancing multiple priorities while keeping documentation and communication clear and to spec. We value pragmatic problem-solving and engineering discipline, especially when working across teams, suppliers and owners.

Who Holovis Is

Holovis designs and delivers world-class, guest-facing systems for the themed entertainment industry. We work at the intersection of engineering, technology and story, building complex solutions that must perform 365 days a year for thousands of guests per hour, in real world conditions. We’re a team of engineers, technologists, and delivery professionals who take pride in building systems that are cutting-edge, memorable, engaging and robust.

Some of our partners and clients include Netflix, Disney, Universal Studios, Intamin, Vekoma and Rousch.

Interested? If this sounds like something you could do well, even if you don’t meet every requirement or are from outside the themed entertainment industry, we’d like to hear from you. Apply now and tell us about a project where you led an onboard or vehicle-mounted systems design end-to-end; how you made key trade-offs, coordinated with vendors, and drove integration testing and verification to a confident handover. This job role is available until July or until the role is filled. There may be multiple roles available.