Chief Engineer, Maritime

UFORCE; Greater London; On-site; GBP 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

UFORCE, a defence-technology company with a UK base and global operations, is seeking a Chief Engineer to own a priority product family across air, land and maritime. You will translate mission needs into requirements, lead architecture decisions across disciplines, and ensure the system is integrated, testable, manufacturable, reliable, and ready for operational use.

You will work closely with hardware and software leadership, product, manufacturing and deployment teams across regions, building

Qualifications

• Significant experience as a Chief Engineer or equivalent for a complex physical system.
• Owned a product through requirements, architecture, design, integration, and field operation.
• Broad systems judgment across multiple engineering disciplines.
• Proven ability to improve system performance using first-principles engineering and data-driven approaches.
• Experience moving from prototype to repeatable production in high-consequence environments.

Responsibilities

• Take end-to-end technical ownership of a priority product family, platform, or integrated mission system.
• Translate operator needs into clear system requirements, architecture, interfaces, and acceptance criteria.
• Lead technical trade-offs across mechanical, electrical, electronics, controls, embedded software, autonomy, communications, payloads, and manufacturing constraints.
• Identify and deliver material improvements to mission performance (range, endurance, payload, reliability).
• Accelerate build-test-learn cycles to fielded capabilities.
• Establish and maintain a coherent technical baseline across requirements and configurations.
• Ensure designs are manufacturable, testable, maintainable, and producible at required rates.
• Lead reviews and develop a lean cross-disciplinary team with clear ownership.
• Partner with Software and hardware leadership to ensure integrated operation.
• Intervene directly to unblock priority technical issues and resolve system-level problems.

Skills

Leadership

Systems engineering

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Architecture decisions

Problem solving

Job description

UFORCE exists to make aggression unaffordable.
Founded in Ukraine and headquartered in London, UFORCE is a defence-technology company with operations across Europe, the United States and Asia.
UFORCE builds uncrewed vessels, ground robotics and aircraft, autonomy software, and the command-and-control layer that operates them together. Each platform is deployable on its own, and stronger as part of the system. Its product lines include the MAGURA family of uncrewed surface vessels, the NEMESIS family of strike platforms, the LIUT family of ground robotic platforms, and counter-UAS systems.

About the role

UFORCE is looking for a Chief Engineer to take end-to-end technical ownership of a priority product family, platform, or cross-product mission system spanning air, land, maritime, payloads, and enabling technologies.

Our systems have been shaped by extensive real-world operational use. The next challenge is to turn that advantage into globally deployable products that continuously improve, move rapidly from operator need to fielded capability, and can be produced reliably at scale.

You will be the accountable technical leader for the complete system: translating mission needs into requirements, leading architecture and design decisions across disciplines, driving performance improvements, and ensuring that products are integrated, testable, manufacturable, reliable, and ready for operational use. You will work closely with UFORCE's technical founder, Hardware and Software leadership, Product, Manufacturing, Delivery, and engineering teams across Ukraine and Global markets.

This is not a role for someone who wants to manage engineering from a distance. You will remain close to the technology, the people building it, and the operators using it - leading design reviews, supporting tests and deployments, resolving difficult system-level problems, and creating the technical clarity that allows strong engineers to move quickly.

The role is ideally based in the United Kingdom and will require regular travel to UFORCE engineering, manufacturing, test, and deployment locations.

What you'll do

• Take end-to-end technical ownership of an assigned UFORCE product family, platform, or integrated mission system.

• Translate operator needs, customer requirements, field evidence, and strategic priorities into clear system requirements, architecture, interfaces, and acceptance criteria.

• Lead technical trade-offs across mechanical, electrical, electronics, controls, embedded software, autonomy, communications, payloads, power, manufacturing, and operational constraints.

• Identify and deliver material improvements to mission performance, including areas such as range, endurance, payload, accuracy, survivability, speed, reliability, and operator effectiveness.

• Accelerate the path from mission need to tested and fielded capability through rapid, evidence-led build-test-learn cycles.

• Establish and maintain a coherent technical baseline across requirements, system architecture, interfaces, configurations, and regional product variants.

• Ensure designs are manufacturable, testable, maintainable, supportable, and capable of being produced repeatedly at the required rate and quality.

• Use test, deployment, exercise, operator, and combat evidence to diagnose failures, establish root causes, and drive verified corrective action.

• Lead high-quality requirements, architecture, design, integration, test-readiness, and release-readiness reviews without introducing unnecessary bureaucracy.

• Build and develop a lean, high-performing cross-disciplinary engineering team with clear ownership, strong technical standards, and a low-ego approach to problem-solving.

• Partner closely with Software Engineering and Pavel's organization to ensure hardware, software, controls, compute, and autonomy operate as one integrated system.

• Personally intervene when a priority technical issue or programme is blocked and remain accountable until the system-level problem is resolved.

What we're looking for

• Significant experience as a Chief Engineer, Chief Systems Engineer, Technical Director, Head of Engineering, Chief Designer, Engineering Director, or equivalent senior technical authority for a complex physical system.

• Evidence of having owned a product or system through requirements, architecture, design, integration, verification, production release, and real-world operation.

• Broad systems judgment across multiple engineering disciplines, with the ability to understand interactions, challenge assumptions, and lead consequential technical trade-offs.

• A track record of materially improving system or product performance using first-principles engineering, structured experimentation, and objective evidence.

• Experience shortening development or upgrade cycles in a high-consequence environment while maintaining appropriate safety, design assurance, configuration control, and verification.

• Experience taking a complex product from prototype or low-volume development into repeatable production, or materially improving reliability, quality, yield, maintainability, cost, or throughput.

• The technical credibility to lead highly capable specialists without needing to be the deepest expert in every discipline.

• A leadership style that develops engineers, creates clear ownership, encourages constructive challenge, and treats failed hypotheses as a source of learning rather than blame.

• Comfort operating in a fast-moving, globally distributed environment with incomplete structure, constrained resources, and rapidly changing priorities.

• Willingness to work directly with engineers, factories, test teams, deployed personnel, customers, and operators wherever the most important technical problem exists.

Nice to have

• Experience developing unmanned, autonomous, robotic, aerospace, maritime, defense, or other safety- or mission-critical systems.

• Direct experience supporting military customers, live exercises, demonstrations, deployments, or operationally fielded products.

• Experience in an engineering environment characterized by rapid iteration, tight performance margins, and demanding delivery cycles.

• Familiarity with integrated hardware-software systems, embedded controls, autonomy, communications, payload integration, or system-of-systems architecture.

• Experience adapting a common product architecture across countries, regulatory environments, supply chains, or customer-specific configurations.

• Experience building or turning around an engineering team, function, or technical operating model in a startup or high-growth environment.

The nature of combat has changed.

Tomorrow’s battlefield success depends on autonomy, speed, and adaptability.

And UFORCE is ready.

Are You?