Chief Systems Engineer

About the Role

Leonardo has an exciting and immediate vacancy for a Chief Systems Engineer, someone with a passion for contributing to the UK's Defence Industry and making impactful change. We are recruiting for a Chief Systems Engineer with experience of guiding large teams and has a passion for Systems Engineering and can impart their knowledge and experience on to others.

Our product portfolio is diverse, challenging, and complex, with programmes at various stages of the development lifecycle. This complexity requires a strong adherence to the "Art of Systems Engineering" to ensure activities are performed at the right time.

The role is based on a hybrid basis at our purpose-built site in Southampton.

What You'll Do

The Chief Systems Engineer acts as the focal point for Systems Engineering Governance, ensuring our Systems Engineering capability trends in a positive direction. You will provide direction, guidance, and expertise to ensure:

• Our systems engineering team assesses problems completely.
• Teams reuse techniques and artefacts across the project portfolio.
• Teams manage complexity through effective system architecting.
• Teams predict and mitigate emergent behaviours at system or integrated systems levels.
• Projects create and enact correct verification and validation strategies.

To be successful, you will demonstrate a passion for your trade by instilling a systems-thinking approach, based on experience forming and leading high-performing teams. Using your skills as an influencer, you will thrive in dynamic environments, with the ability to make decisions quickly under pressure and set a clear technical vision for the team on Systems Engineering methodologies.

Given the extensive people engagement nature of the work, an on-site presence is essential, but we offer flexible working that allows for a combination of home and on-site working.

Day-to-day duties include:

• Influencing the development of Engineering artefacts, their technical direction, and ultimately stakeholder satisfaction.
• Working across highly demanding and complex areas of the business, immersed in full-scale development programmes spanning the engineering lifecycle across Airborne Comms and Naval Information, Communication System (ICS) teams.
• Acting as the focal point for systems engineering governance, supporting Lifecycle Management (LCM) activities.
• Providing expertise and guidance to ensure engineers understand problems and stakeholder needs through effective coaching on Systems Engineering practices.
• Ensuring the appropriate level of concepting, modelling, and simulation techniques are used across the lifecycle to inform architectures and solution options.
• Influencing whole-life design considerations relating to Safety, Security, Manufacture, Test, Supportability, and Through-Life Support in line with company processes.
• Supporting quarterly threat and mitigation reviews across the Business Area’s on project status and enabling initiatives.
• Representing Leonardo within Systems Engineering bodies and groups of interest, such as INCOSE.
• Identifying trends across Business Areas, capturing and sharing lessons learned to improve future work quality and efficiency.
• Promoting an agile mindset to systems engineering, building a culture of experimentation and failing fast.
• Collaborating with peers to promote a culture of continual learning and improvement, acting as a change agent for systems engineering.

What You'll Bring

Ideally, you are already in a Chief Systems Engineer role or a Lead Engineer looking for the next opportunity. We are looking for a systems thinker with:

• Experience in applying governance and guidance on Systems Engineering LCM processes.
• Experience working in Integrated Project Teams delivering Engineering artefacts successfully.
• Experience in eliciting stakeholder expectations.
• Experience in creating and defining architectures.
• Experience in managing and collaborating with internal/external stakeholders.
• Proven leadership and decision-making skills in a high-complexity, dynamic environment at a senior level.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build trust and respect at different levels.
• Experience of integration, with an understanding of resultant issues, cost and schedule implications, and potential mitigations.
• Motivation, tenacity, and determination, with a desire to deliver outputs and results.

Desirable Experience/Skills:

• Experience with Model Based Systems Engineering tools and methodologies.
• Experience working on large-scale Systems Integration programmes, managing associated cost, schedule, and quality implications.
• Domain experience in Telecommunications, RF, Electronic Warfare, Electro-Optics, Air/Land/Sea sub-system Platform Integration, Data Distribution Services, Sensor Fusion, AI/Machine Learning.
• Practitioner level ability using Model Driven Engineering tools (e.g., Cameo Systems Modeler, Matlab, Simulink, DOORS (classic), Polarion).

This is not an exhaustive list, and we encourage applications even if you don't meet every criterion. A good attitude and willingness to learn are paramount.

Security Clearance

This role is subject to pre-employment screening in line with the UK Government’s Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). An additional range of Personnel Security Controls referred to as National Security Vetting (NSV) may apply, which could include eligibility for Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). For more information, please visit: https://careers.uk.leonardo.com/gb/en/security-and-vetting

Location and Contract

Primary Location: GB - Southampton

Contract Type: Permanent

Hybrid Working: Hybrid