Systems Engineer- Defence

Role Purpose

*RATES OUTSIDE IR-35*

The Systems Engineer (Mechanical Bias) is responsible for the definition, management, and delivery of the missile’s mechanical requirements package. The role ensures that mechanical and thermal requirements are clearly derived, structured, flowed down, and validated from system level through to sub-systems across all missile variants.

Positioned at the centre of the systems engineering function, the role acts as the focal point for mechanical requirements, interface definition, and compliance evidence, ensuring coherence, traceability, and alignment throughout the full product lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

Mechanical Requirements Management

• Lead the creation, ownership, and maintenance of the Missile Airframe Task Requirements Specification (TRS), ensuring a clear, structured, and traceable response to the overarching Missile TRS.
• Ensure mechanical and thermal requirements are unambiguous, verifiable, and consistently interpreted across all missile variants and development teams.
• Manage requirements flow-down, allocation, and change control, maintaining alignment between system intent and lower-level requirements.
• Act as the authority for mechanical requirements interpretation and compliance status.

Interface Definition & Control

• Define, manage, and control mechanical and thermal interface requirements, ensuring consistency across system, sub-system, and equipment boundaries.
• Own the mechanical interface requirements with the launcher, ensuring compatibility with system constraints and customer expectations.
• Coordinate interface inputs across multiple disciplines, maintaining clear ownership, documentation, and change governance.
• Serve as the mechanical requirements and interface focal point between systems engineering, detailed design teams, suppliers, and external stakeholders.

Modularity, Reuse & Requirements Governance

• Apply and enforce Generic Missile Architecture (GMA) policies through robust requirements definition, supporting modularity, reuse, and commonality across product variants.
• Ensure requirements packages enable common solutions while clearly identifying variant-specific constraints.
• Promote disciplined requirements governance to support lifecycle cost reduction, configurability, and long-term product evolution.

Verification, Validation & Compliance

• Define and own the mechanical verification and validation strategy, clearly linking each requirement to an appropriate means of compliance.
• Develop and maintain airframe proving logic, ensuring mechanical and thermal requirements can be objectively verified.
• Track and report mechanical compliance status against the Airframe TRS, supporting design reviews, audits, and certification milestones.
• Contribute to the evidence base required to achieve Certificate of Design and other regulatory approvals.

Customer & Stakeholder Engagement

• Support customer engagement by providing clear, defensible rationale for mechanical requirements, interfaces, and compliance approaches.
• Participate in technical discussions with customers, partners, and suppliers, representing the mechanical requirements package with confidence and clarity.
• Support the management of customer expectations by providing transparent status and impact assessments related to mechanical requirements.

Planning & Delivery

• Produce Statements of Work (SOWs), work packages, and plans related to mechanical systems engineering and requirements activities.
• Support programme planning, scheduling, and risk management, ensuring requirements activities are realistic, resourced, and aligned with programme milestones.
• Identify and manage risks related to requirements definition, interfaces, and verification maturity.

Skills & Experience

Essential

• Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Proven experience in systems engineering within complex, safety-critical environments (e.g. aerospace, defence, missile systems).
• Strong experience in requirements engineering, including specification writing, traceability, change management, and compliance tracking.
• Experience producing and managing requirements specifications, interface control documents, and verification plans.
• Ability to operate effectively at both system and sub-system level, balancing technical rigor with programme needs.

Desirable

• Experience working with missile, airframe, or launcher systems.
• Understanding of thermal management and environmental qualification requirements.
• Familiarity with modular product architectures and product line approaches.
• Experience supporting certification, qualification, or regulatory approval activities.

RATES OUTSIDE IR-35