Firmware Manager in Crawley

Location: Reading, United Kingdom

In fast changing markets, customers worldwide rely on Thales. Thales is a business where brilliant people from all over the world come together to share ideas and inspire each other. In aerospace, transportation, defence, security and space, our architects design innovative solutions that make our tomorrow's possible. Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across the major industries of Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space.

Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Primary Purpose of Role:

We are looking for a Digital Electronics Discipline Manager to join the UK ECC (Engineering Competence Centre) in the Central Engineering team that is challenged with supporting complex Digital FPGA projects across all Thales Domains. The successful candidate must have experience managing the complete FPGA development lifecycle particularly digital architecting and FPGA verification. They will report directly to the UK Hardware Operations Manager and will define, support and/or commence execution of FPGA Engineering management activities on a range of Domains within the Thales UK perimeter. The role encompasses people, technical, tactical and delivery management for the FPGA based projects. The role operates within a complex wider engineering environment and requires management of multiple stakeholders across many levels within the organisation.

Accountable for all aspects of Delivery Performance of the respective Digital Electronic Discipline: including the delivery of tasks, activities, work packages and the provision of resources; as well as ensuring competence, Hardware Quality Assurance, utilising control data analytics to monitor delivery performance and project alignment with adjacent stakeholders and customers. Ensuring adherence to processes, methods and practices. Additionally optimally mitigating stakeholder and customer escalations and exceptions and leading a culture of continuous improvement.

Location(s): Crawley, Reading, Cheadle, Bristol, Templecombe, Belfast, Glasgow, Any other Thales site in the UK

Principle Relationships:

• Engineering Director
• Engineering Operations Director
• Head of ECC-UK
• MoB&F Director
• CBU Heads of Hardware
• Head of HR, Engineering
• CBU Heads of Engineering

Key responsibilities & Accountabilities:

• Support the optimisation of Thales UK performance: costs and schedule adherence of any activity by delivering FPGA development related elements of an engineering competitiveness action plan by simplifying / adapting the processes, practices tools and interfaces and changing the working methods in appropriate engineering domains.
• Manage and optimise the FPGA design, development and verification capability within Hardware.
• Quantify skills, competences, processes, tools and facilities in line with business needs (including improvement of accurate or estimated resource demand within IBP).
• The role holder will also work closely with the MoB&F Director to enable the exploitation of the Engineering supply chain and capabilities across the Thales Group including the ECC’s in France, Romania and India.
• Support the development and integration of the UK Hardware engineering environments aligned with UK Engineering Environments and the Thales Group strategy.
• Working with the Head of ECC-UK and HR, support the Engineering Talent Review Process, developing pipelines of talent for Thales UK.
• Work collaboratively with Business Lines to implement the Engineering Governance and Organisation Principles to deliver strong engineering performance, driving down inefficiencies and improving competency.
• Will act as the Team Lead (Line Manager) for the employees within your direct reporting line.
• Is accountable for reporting of performance metrics and escalation of issues from the respective Capability within ECC-UK.
• Adherence to digital electronics and FPGA development practices.
• Stakeholder management confidence via guidance and knowledge sharing of project progress and pre‑established practices.
• Delivery on time to project Supply (competence and capacity) to demand.

Skills & Experience:

The candidate must have digital design and leadership experience, supported either by a professional qualification in FPGA development or proven equivalent experience, and able to prove knowledge of digital architecture design and FPGA lifecycle development. Required to operate in a complex governance framework within Engineering, Project Management, Quality, Industry and Safety. The candidate must have strong knowledge and proven application of hardware engineering project delivery and processes across the full project lifecycle and experience of working in an engineering environment is essential. The candidate must have experienced engineering management leadership and in managing complex teams and projects. The candidate requires a flexible and pro‑active approach to perform effectively in a fast‑changing business environment.

Security Clearance Requirement:

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a Non‑ITAR country may be considered. 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.

In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided.

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working. Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier‑free recruitment process. We will provide reasonable adjustments and support to ensure neuro‑diverse applicants or those with a disability or long‑term condition can be their best during the recruitment process. To request an adjustment, if you need this job advert in an alternative format or if you have any questions about the recruitment process, contact Resourcing Ops for mid to senior roles, or the Early Careers Team for graduate and apprentice roles.

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