Programme Manager - Radar and Fire-Control Systems

Onodrim Industries; Zürich; On-site; CHF 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Onodrim Industries is assembling Europe’s leading defence and industrial platform. This Programme Manager for Radar Systems will own scope, budget, risks and milestones for assigned radar programmes, coordinating suppliers, research institutes, and portfolio teams to deliver tested capabilities.

You will chair reviews, assess sensor designs, and guide trials across Europe, balancing performance, cost and schedule while maintaining security and export controls.

Qualifications

• Degree in electrical engineering, physics or closely related discipline.
• 5+ years in radar or RF sensing with at least 3 years hands-on engineering experience.
• At least 2 years running programmes or projects with budget, schedule, suppliers and customer sign-off.
• Working knowledge of modern radar, including phased-array and MIMO architectures, waveform design, detection and tracking.
• Experience with range trials or operational testing of sensors, ideally against drones or projectiles.
• Comfort managing external engineering partners and holding them to commitments.
• Structured, numbers-driven approach with risk registers, test plans and status reports.

Responsibilities

• Run the programme: own scope, plan, budget, risk, schedule and weekly status.
• Write the requirement from customer needs into system requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Coordinate suppliers, research institutes and portfolio-company teams; negotiate statements of work and milestones.
• Chair design reviews, review test data and challenge waveform, array and processing choices.
• Plan and run lab tests, range trials and customer demonstrations; turn results into decisions.
• Support the deal team with radar-domain diligence on acquisitions and partnerships.
• Bridge programme outcomes to portfolio companies to industrialise sensor and processing chains.
• Ensure compliance with spectrum, test-range approvals, export control and security.

Skills

Radar systems

Project management

Budget management

Schedule management

Stakeholder management

English communication

European travel

Education

Electrical engineering or physics degree

Job description

About the role

Onodrim is building Europe's largest defence and industrial platform. We acquire specialist manufacturers in critical defence and dual-use supply chains, then invest behind their growth with capital, technology and operating know-how.

Radar and sensing is one of the areas where we are building real depth – low-cost and short-range radars for counter-UAS and platform protection, the signal processing and software behind them, and the companies that make them. The Programme Manager for Radar Systems runs the programmes that turn that intent into delivered capability. You'll be assigned to specific programmes – an active-protection or counter-UAS sensor, a joint development with a research institute, a customer trial, a technology integration at a portfolio company – and own them from scope to acceptance.

This is a role for an engineer who has moved into running things. You'll need enough radar depth to judge a design review, read a trials report and tell a supplier's schedule from their hope, and enough programme discipline to keep budget, timeline, suppliers and the relevant customer fully aligned throughout the process. You'll spend time on the range, at test sites and at partner labs, not only in meetings.

What you'll do

• Run the programme. Own scope, plan, budget, risk register and schedule for each programme you're assigned; report status weekly in numbers, elevate early, and execute well to completion.
• Write the requirement. Turn a customer need, a threat or a strategic decision into a concept of operations, a system requirement (detection range, target set, false-alarm rate, size/weight/power, cost) and acceptance criteria that engineers can build to and users can test against.
• Manage the parties. Coordinate suppliers, semiconductor and antenna vendors, research institutes, partner companies and portfolio-company engineering teams; negotiate statements of work, hold them to milestones and resolve conflicts.
• Judge the engineering. Chair design reviews, read test and trials data, challenge waveform, array and processing choices, and decide when a sensor is good enough to proceed.
• Run the trials. Plan and execute lab tests, range trials and customer demonstrations against real targets – drones, projectiles, ground movers – in realistic clutter and electromagnetic environments, and turn the results into decisions.
• Support the deal team. Contribute the radar-domain view to technical diligence of acquisition targets and partnerships: what they have built, how well it detects, and what it would take to improve and industrialise.
• Bridge to the portfolio. Take programme outcomes into the companies we own – a sensor to industrialise, a processing chain to integrate, a test process to fix – and work with their teams and our Forward Deployed Operators to make it stick.
• Keep it compliant. Manage spectrum and test-range approvals, export control, security classification and customer qualification on your programmes.
• Feed the strategy. Bring what you learn on the programme – technology, suppliers, customers, competitors – back to the Head of RF Systems to shape what Onodrim invests in next.

What you'll bring

• A degree in electrical engineering, physics or a closely related discipline.
• 5+ years in radar or RF sensing, including at least 3 years hands-on as an engineer – RF front-end, antenna/array, signal processing, systems or test – before moving into programme or product responsibility.
• At least 2 years running programmes or projects with real ownership: budget, schedule, suppliers and a customer who signs off.
• Working knowledge of modern radar: phased-array and MIMO architectures, waveform design, detection and tracking, clutter and interference, and the trade-offs between performance, cost and size/weight/power.
• Experience with range trials or operational testing of sensors, ideally against small drones, projectiles or ground targets with military users.
• Comfort managing external engineering partners – vendors, institutes, subcontractors – and holding them to commitments.
• Structured, numbers-driven working style: risk registers, test plans and status reports that someone can act on.
• Clear, direct communication in English, written and spoken, with engineers, suppliers and customers alike.
• Willingness to travel extensively across Europe – partner sites, test ranges, portfolio companies.
• Right to work in Switzerland or the EU, and eligibility for a national security clearance in at least one of our operating countries.

Nice to have

• We operate our business in English but fluency in one or more additional European languages is helpful.
• Military service in an air-defence, artillery, EW or surveillance role, or time as a user of radar or counter-UAS systems.
• An existing national security clearance.
• Experience with counter-UAS, active protection systems, or short-range ground and perimeter surveillance radar.
• Familiarity with commercial radar silicon (automotive mmWave, software-defined radar platforms) and the questions of using it in defence products.
• Experience with sensor fusion, track management or integration of radar into C2 and situational-awareness tools.
• Experience on the supplier side of a prime or armed-forces procurement – proposal, qualification, framework contracts.
• Exposure to export control (EU dual-use, ITAR/EAR) and classified-programme handling.
• Experience in a start-up or small team where you did whatever the programme needed.