Remote Senior Technical Designer - Safety-Critical Systems

NATS is the UK's leading air navigation service provider, handling over 2.4 million flights each year. We provide air traffic control services from two control centres and at airports around the UK. We also provide a wide range of commercial products and solutions internationally. Our people are at the heart of our purpose to advance aviation and keep the skies safe.

Job Purpose/Overview

Responsible for the Technology (Technical) Solution Design for a specific Service or Assets that make up the service. Leading the Technical Solution Design elements as part of the Overall Service Design Pack for the Service.

Other Duties Include

• Within the NATS SI Framework, responsible for the end to end Technical Design of a large scale / high criticality, or Enterprise wide solution representing the Service Design organisation to both its Programme and Service Operations customers and stakeholders.
• Leads the creation, review and maintenance of the Service Design process for operational methods, procedures, facilities and tools. Ensuring they meet the strategic requirements of the business (Enterprise & Business Arch (STPL) Level 6).
• Responsible for Technical Design for a Service and / or Asset group supporting the Service Designer in meeting their accountabilities for their Service Design components.
• Puts in place and maintain governance practices. Determine the appropriate of Governance required when reviewing and approve High Level and Low-Level Technical Designs. Approve "exceptions" identified in Low Level Designs for underpinning Capabilities and prepare submissions to the relevant design governance mechanisms. (Enterprise IT Governance (GOVN) Level 6).
• Impact assess Operational Change Requests to ensure changes are within the Design Envelope and escalate through the Design Processes where not. (Business Risk Management (BURM) Level 6).
• Provide Technology Design representation across the service and wider with a knowledge of each of the systems and assets that make up the system/thread.

Essential Skills and Experience

• The post holder must be highly motivated and able to communicate clearly both orally and in writing, understanding and reviewing reports written by others and writing documents forming part of the formal documentation of a change, minutes of a formal meeting or a formal report.
• The post holder must have good interpersonal communication and management skills. The ability to lead, coach, motivate and develop members of the design and service team to maximise their contribution, including Work Package delivery to projects and the operational teams in coordination with Practice Managers.
• Degree in an Engineering or IT subject and equivalent knowledge acquired through experience in a safety critical environment. Qualification and experience must balance technical engineering with business acumen to meet both the technical and business management requirements of this role.
• Applicants not holding the above qualifications but who have undertaken structured Engineering training (recognised by a professional body) and have extensive engineering experience will be considered.
• Ability to operate at level 6 (Initiate, Influence) of the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).
• Experience in a Service Design Organisation delivering and developing technologies for safety critical Services to meet operational commitments.
• Demonstrate Leadership in technology design focused on the continual improvement of the service designed to fit a market need whilst balancing all stakeholder requirements.
• Is comfortable operating under circumstances where there is a high degree of uncertainty, particularly early in the service lifecycle.
• A proven track record of balancing risk with reward/return.
• An accomplished, credible and respected leader with well-developed communication, influencing and negotiation skills gained in a complex organisation undergoing significant transformation.
• Proven leadership of multi-disciplinary teams (that could span marketing, sales, architecture, engineering, suppliers and service operations) across the full service lifecycle and through a matrix based, safety related organisation.
• Career record of leading technology design in successful business change programmes.
• Excellent appreciation of ITIL methodologies and standards; ideally accredited to Foundation and Practitioner standards.
• Good understanding of the NATS operating environment and our strategic intent / objectives.
• Extensive Engineering/IT/Business management experience in a fast paced, customer centric and multi-site business.
• Strong interpersonal skills with an inherent ability to effectively communicate with and influence internal and external stakeholders up to a senior level.
• High levels of energy, drive and resilience, with the flexibility to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Drive and determination to champion and improve customer satisfaction.

Desirable

• Ability to contribute to service design and to lead on and provide oversight of ATM communications technical designs.
• Strong experience in delivering on complex communications systems - ideally within Air Traffic Management (ATM) environments - including knowledge/experience with modern VoIP and SIP based architectures, migration from legacy platforms, and the development of resilient, safety critical communication services.

We are proud to offer a fantastic total reward package to help you thrive both personally and professionally. We have adopted agile working to provide greater flexibility and increased choice over working arrangements, with the opportunity for this role to work in our modern office facilities as well as remotely. We also welcome discussions on flexible and part-time working arrangements. If you share our passion to advance aviation and keep the skies safe - we would like to hear from you.