Chief Systems Engineer for Autonomous Defense Tech

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, 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