Senior Systems Engineer

Senior Systems Engineer

Location Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Edinburgh.

Salary: Band E £39,748 - £44,166 to Band F £50,702 - £56,336 (dependent on skills and experience) *

Contract Type: Open-Ended

Hours: Full-Time (We understand the importance of work-life balance, and are happy to discuss the possibility of flexible working with applicants)

*This role is eligible for up to £5,000 Responsibility and Retention Allowance gross per annum

Come and do the kind of engineering that made you want to be an engineer. Stretch your technical skills while building human understanding. Promote sustainability and create new materials. And, alongside world-leading scientists and technologists, shape projects that improve lives, and daily life, in the UK and far beyond.

Put simply, come and discover the impact you can make when you’re equipped, encouraged and inspired to perform to your very best.

The UK ATC designs and builds ground and space-based instrumentation for large astronomical observatories around the world. Projects are typically on 5 to 10 year life-cycles and are carried out by teams made up from a variety of international consortium partners. The main area of expertise is in optical and infrared instrumentation, and we have an excellent reputation for project leadership and system integration. Within the astronomy community the systems engineer is normally seen as the technical leader of the project, with responsibility for the performance of the delivered product and has a significant customer-facing role.

About the role
The Systems Engineering group is seeking people with proven experience as an accomplished, practicing Systems/Project Engineer to work on a range of ground, and space, based instrumentation projects for leading observatories worldwide. In addition to having been an accomplished design engineer in a primary engineering discipline (optical, mechanical, electronics, control, and/or software engineering), you will have proven experience of leading a multidisciplinary engineering team.

As a senior systems engineer, you will be a key player and will be part of the project management team. You will be responsible for the requirements engineering, the overall system architecture, assembly, integration, verification, installation, commissioning, and delivery of our astronomical and scientific products. Working as a senior member of the team, you will have the freedom to define and execute your own work plan without the need to be supervised and you will have many opportunities to innovate and develop new technical solutions, with considerable scope to be creative.

Responsibilities will include:

• Development of the overall system architecture.
• Overall responsibility for the flow of information within the consortium team and with the external stakeholders.
• Definition and control of internal and external interfaces.
• Application of end-to-end systems analysis and modelling and the subsequent allocation and management of technical budgets/tolerances.
• The development of integration and test plans which will verify compliance with sub-system and instrument requirements.
• Manage the assembly, integration and testing of systems and sub-systems in UK ATC laboratories
• Verification testing and acceptance at sub-system and system level.

Person Specification

• Degree in an applicable engineering subject area (Optical, Mechanical, Electronics, or Software), Physics degree, or equivalent experience.
• Proven industry systems engineering experience with architectural design of complex systems.
• Proven experience in managing multidisciplinary engineering teams.
• Knowledge of a wide range of technologies.
• Excellent analytical and technical problem solving.

We ask some of the biggest questions in the universe, to answer some of the biggest challenges in the world. Together, our scientists, technologists, engineers and business-support team explore the unknown across every field you could think of. And they turn what they find into work that changes the world around us.

What could you achieve with the world-leading facilities and experts of one of Europe's largest research organisations by your side? Join us and discover what's possible.

STFC values their employees by offering a benefits package designed to provide an excellent work/life balance. This includes 30 days’ annual leave, 10.5 public and privilege holidays, flexible working hours, a workplace nursery, exceptional average salary pension scheme, social and sporting activities and societies and a subsidised restaurant.

Applicants who are unable to apply online should contact us by telephone on 07710 115815.

The closing date for applications is 4th June 2023.