Lead Systems Engineer

PAVE Space SA.; Villeneuve (VD); On-site; CHF 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

PAVE Space SA seeks a senior Systems Engineer to own the system architecture for LYOBA and IBEX, leading baselines, interfaces, and V&V planning. You will formalise the architecture under load with weekly timelines on a programme that moves from PDR through qualification.

Responsibilities include owning requirements, defining interfaces with launcher and payload partners, tracking risks, and producing ICDs. Fluency in English is required; on-site in Villeneuve (VD), near Chavalon test site.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of systems engineering on large space programmes.
• At least one flight programme ownership from PDR through qualification.
• Requirements decomposition and flow-down for multi-subsystem vehicle.
• Deep knowledge of propulsion-driven architectures (storable or cryogenic).
• Experience writing and defending ICDs with launcher providers and customers.
• Hands-on with artifacts: architecture diagrams, V&V matrices, risk registers.
• Working knowledge of ECSS or NASA systems engineering standards.
• Fluent English.

Responsibilities

• Own system architecture and technical baseline for LYOBA and IBEX.
• Define requirements baseline and end-to-end traceability from mission needs to subsystem specs.
• Manage interfaces across subsystems and with external launchers, payloads, and ground segment.
• Define V&V strategy and qualification path for each vehicle.
• Maintain system-level risk register and plan to retire items.
• Prepare technical content for reviews gates SRR through FRR across programmes.
• Lead and formalise the systems engineering function on the programme.

Skills

Systems engineering

Requirements decomposition

V&V planning

ICD writing

Risk management

ECSS/NASA standards

Architecture diagrams

English proficiency

Tools

ECSS standards knowledge

Job description

PAVE Space is building LYOBA, a heavy kick stage moving over 4-tonne payloads from LEO to high-energy orbits in under 24 hours. Neither LYOBA nor IBEX ships without one person owning the architecture, the interfaces, and the qualification path across both. That's the job.

Two vehicles are running in parallel and systems engineering has been carried as a third hat by one of our senior engineers. It's the constraint on both programmes. You'll inherit the function and formalise it under load, on a timeline measured in weeks, not quarters.

You will own

System architecture and the technical baseline for LYOBA and IBEX

Requirements baseline and end-to-end traceability from mission needs to subsystem specs

Interfaces: internal ICDs across subsystems and external ones with launchers, customer payloads, and ground segment

V&V strategy and qualification path for each vehicle

System-level technical risk register and the plan to retire each item

Technical content of every review gate, SRR through FRR, across both programmes

What we are looking for

10+ years of systems engineering on large space programmes

At least one flight programme owned from PDR through qualification

Requirements decomposition and verification flow-down on a multi-subsystem vehicle: launcher, spacecraft, or upper stage

Deep working knowledge of propulsion-driven architectures, storable or cryogenic

Writing and defending ICDs with launcher providers and external customers

Hands-on with the artefacts: architecture diagrams, V&V matrices, risk registers. Not only reviewing them

Working knowledge of ECSS or NASA systems engineering standards and the judgement to know when to depart from them

English, fluently

Nice to have: kick stage or OTV experience, prior experience founding the systems engineering function on a programme rather than inheriting it.

You will fit if

You're comfortable being the senior technical voice in a room where the PMs own the schedule and you own whether the vehicle is sound.

You want to be on the floor with the engineers and at the test site when hardware fires, not running the function from a screen.

You can disagree with the CTO and the programme managers in the morning and ship a coherent decision by the afternoon.

You take matrix authority seriously, both the leverage it gives you and the discipline it demands.

You'd rather write the V&V matrix yourself than wait for someone else's draft.

The job is fully on-site in Villeneuve (VD), with our test site in Chavalon twenty minutes away. The systems engineering function exists informally today and you'll be standing it up while two programmes run. This is hard and early. If you want a mature systems engineering org with established processes, this is the wrong seat. If you want to set those processes for the most ambitious space programme in Switzerland, it's the right one.

We are building to ship, grounded on real hardware, real funding, real milestones.