Senior C++ Software Engineer

Job Description:

Salary Range:

Senior Engineer £45000 - £60000

Principal Engineer £54000 - £70000

Where this vacancy is being recruited across more than one grade, the successful candidate will be appointed to a specific assessed grade, and the applicable salary range will be that associated with the grade of appointment.

Leonardo UK operates a grade-based salary framework with broad bands. The salary range shown reflects the approved grade band for this role, or a narrower hiring range published within that band, and is benchmarked against the external market. Exceptions above the standard range are managed through governance controls to protect internal equity.

Your impact

Do you want to work on one of the UK’s most advanced defence and aerospace programmes?

At Leonardo, we're enhancing the capabilities of the Eurofighter Typhoon, and we're looking for talented Software Engineers to help shape the future of air defence. This is an opportunity to contribute to technology that protects the nation and makes a real-world impact.

As a Software Engineer, you'll join a high-performing Agile team of 7-10 engineers, collaborating closely with a wider community of almost 100 software professionals. Together, you'll play a key role in developing and sustaining the software that underpins the UK's air defence capability for decades to come.

Working across the full software development lifecycle, you'll help architect, design, develop and test new capabilities, while contributing to sprint planning and technical decision-making. You'll be encouraged to take ownership of your work, drive innovation, and deliver solutions that make a tangible difference on a world-leading aerospace platform.

What you'll do

• Develop, test, and maintain C++ software for the Eurofighter Typhoon programme.
• Collaborate within a multidisciplinary team spanning software, systems, firmware, and hardware engineering.
• Deliver new features and enhancements in an agile development environment.
• Translate requirements into effective software designs and solutions.
• Investigate, debug, and resolve software issues.
• Contribute to software architecture and technical decision-making.
• Take ownership of tasks from planning through to delivery.
• Conduct code reviews and uphold high standards of software quality.
• Share knowledge and contribute to continuous team improvement.

What you’ll bring

To be successful in this role, we really need you to have the following experience and abilities:

• Strong C++ programming skills.
• Experience working within an agile team and familiarity with agile software development lifecycle.
• Proven ability to collaborate effectively within a multidisciplinary team and across multiple engineering teams to deliver integrated solutions.
• Ability to analyse requirements and translate them into effective software designs and implementations.
• Understanding of and commitment to ensuring good engineering practices and maintaining high standards of software quality.
• Working knowledge of Git (or equivalent) source control.
• The ability to trace, diagnose and resolve potential software issues. Familiarity with a debugger.

If you have the above skills, the following will really help you stand out:

• Experience working with large or complex software systems, including understanding and managing dependencies between components.
• Experience mentoring engineers, providing technical leadership or helping teams adopt engineering best practices.
• Understanding of software architecture and design principles.
• Familiarisation with component-based development.
• Experience with working in embedded environments.
• Experience using static analysis and code coverage tooling.
• Knowledge of best practises for incremental development.
• Familiarity with the Atlassian toolset.
• Familiarity with Cmake.

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, this could include meeting the eligibility requirements for The Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). For more information and guidance please visit: https://careers.uk.leonardo.com/gb/en/security-and-vetting

Why join us

At Leonardo, our people are at the heart of everything we do. We offer a comprehensive, company-funded benefits package that supports your wellbeing, career development, and work-life balance. Whether you're looking to grow professionally, care for your health, or plan for the future, we’re here to help you thrive.

• Time to Recharge: Enjoy generous leave with the opportunity to accrue up to 12 additional flexi-days each year.
• Secure your Future: Benefit from our award-winning pension scheme with up to 15% employer contribution.
• Your Wellbeing Matters: Free access to mental health support, financial advice, and employee-led networks championing inclusion and diversity (Enable, Pride, Equalise, Armed Forces, Carers, Wellbeing and Ethnicity).
• Rewarding Performance: All employees at management level and below are eligible for our bonus scheme.
• Never Stop Learning: Free access to 4,000+ online courses via Coursera and LinkedIn Learning.
• Refer a friend: Receive a financial reward through our referral programme.
• Tailored Perks: Spend up to £500 annually on flexible benefits including private healthcare, dental, family cover, tech & lifestyle discounts, gym memberships and more.
• Flexible working: Flexible working hours are available, however, due to the nature of this role, full-time on-site working is required. For part time opportunities, please talk to us.

For a full list of our company benefits please visit our website.

Leonardo is a global leader in Aerospace, Defence, and Security. Headquartered in Italy, we employ over 53,000 people worldwide including 8,500 across 9 sites in the UK. Our employees are not just part of a team-they are key contributors to shaping innovation, advancing technology, and enhancing global safety.

At Leonardo we are committed to building an inclusive, accessible, and welcoming workplace. We believe that a diverse workforce sparks creativity, drives innovation, and leads to better outcomes for our people and our customers. If you have any accessibility requirements to support you during the recruitment process, just let us know.

Be part of something bigger - apply now!

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