Leonardo has a fantastic opportunity for a Principal Systems Engineer to work on a high-profile project for the UK MOD. The Principal Systems Engineer will join the Combat Air business group and a role within the Systems Engineering team will provide exposure to a wide-variety of Electronic Warfare (EW) products and subject-matter experts within domain, product, and technology fields.

The Principal Systems Engineer will lead the project's system integration, verification, and validation (IV&V) activities to support the qualification and acceptance of an airborne RF EW sub-system, which will be integrated within a larger EW system architecture. The role inherently requires a strong aptitude for problem solving and managing multiple system interdependencies.

The Principal Systems Engineer will apply their knowledge and experience of systems engineering to achieve agreed project milestones and associated deliverables, alongside mentoring and support to team members for IVVQ activities.

What you will do

• Manage the overall strategy for verification and validation of the EW sub-system:

o Writing sub-system acceptance test procedures.

o Design and develop test environments, incl. specifying required test equipment.

o Create / develop the qualification plan, incl. environmental and EMC.

o Create / develop test & acceptance plan, and manage evidence to meet requirements.

o Support resource estimation, planning, and reporting.

o Contribute to risk management.

• Manage day-to-day tasking of more junior engineers supporting IV&V activities:

o Opportunity to develop mentoring and coaching skills.

• Lead sub-system level testing and evaluation in a laboratory environment:

o Produce / document / analyse test data.

o Generation of sub-system level verification cross reference matrix (VCRM).

o Supporting engineering design reviews, in particular test readiness

o Achieving acceptance / certification from relevant design authorities.

• Supporting the Systems Integration team with System Replacement Item (SRI) level testing:

o Provision of sub-system functional knowledge to direct system testing.

o Ensuring evidence accumulation from SRI-level activity supports sub-system level VCRM.

o Support to the definition and undertaking of system acceptance test procedures.

• Leading the functional development of the emulator suite:

o Deriving interface / functional design requirements.

o Supporting software/hardware teams with development of low-level functionality.

• Engaging with customer network to ensure cohesion and suitability of integration activities and timelines.
• Supporting development of the overall system trials strategy:

o Articulation of trials aims and objectives.

o Development of required test environments.

o Creation of flight trials scenarios.

What we are looking for

You really must have:

• A solid foundation in a relevant technical domain, exploited in an airborne (ideally EW) systems context/application.
• A history of performing integration, verification and validation activities including the authoring of test plans and procedures, the subsequent undertaking of such, and the generation of test reports.
• Demonstrable experience in writing high quality technical documentation, understanding complex technical documentation and reviewing of such material.
• The ability to use DOORS software is essential to manage test procedure traceability and verification evidence capturing.
• Experience with military biased product design & test standards is highly desirable.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills.
• Experience of leading engineering gate reviews and the associated assessment of design compliance.
• Ability to cope with a high degree of design complexity & significant levels of uncertainty.
• Experience of supporting design/delivery teams to develop complex, technical solutions in accordance with plans & processes.
• Self-motivated with an aptitude for problem solving and driving difficult issues to conclusion.
• Experience of working with a variety of internal and external stakeholders of varying seniorities.
• Ability to obtain SC Clearance for UK-caveated programmes.
• Experience of MATLAB & Simulink to help understanding, set-up, and running the tests and analysis of test data.
• Experience of leading small teams.