General Engineer

Oshen; Plymouth; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

EMI stock options

Job summary

Oshen in Plymouth is seeking an engineer to own real parts of a robot, from initial sketch to deployment at sea. You will tackle varied problems across C-Star payloads with ownership to ship decisions into hardware.

You might design in CAD, build test rigs, integrate sensors and analyse data from sea trials to drive practical design improvements. A hands-on, quick-learning engineer will thrive.

Qualifications

• An engineer with a degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Hands-on with physical hardware; CAD, prototyping, testing, electronics or embedded systems helpful.
• Ability to reason from first principles and tackle ill-defined problems.

Responsibilities

• Design parts and assemblies in CAD and work with workshop to make buildable hardware for the sea.
• Develop, integrate and characterise sensors from mounting to data validation.
• Build test rigs and run bench, dockside and sea trials to understand performance and failures.
• Analyse logs and returned hardware from sea trials to drive design improvements.
• Support a clean-sheet redesign of a C-Star subsystem and evolve ideas into prototypes.

Skills

CAD

Prototyping

Testing

Electronics

Embedded systems

Sensors

Education

Engineering degree or equivalent

2-4 years of experience guidance

Tools

CAD software

Job description

Work on the robots that sail into hurricanes and survive Arctic winters. This is a broad engineering role for someone who wants to own real parts of a robot, from first sketch to deployment at sea.

One week you might be in CAD redesigning a sensor mount or a C-Star subsystem so it can be built faster, survive a harder mission, or make room for a new payload. Next, you could be building and testing a prototype, integrating a sensor or electronic subsystem, analysing data and failures from an earlier sea trial, then turning what you learned into the next design revision. You will work across mechanics, electronics, sensors, software and test, with the support of specialists around you.

The role

You will take on varied engineering problems across C-Star and its payloads, with enough ownership to see your decisions make it into real robots and real missions. Priorities will move as customer programmes, test results and new opportunities do. We are looking for an engineer who is comfortable getting hands-on, learning unfamiliar things quickly, and bringing order to a problem that is not fully defined yet.

What you might work on

• Designing parts and assemblies in CAD, then working with the workshop and suppliers to turn them into buildable hardware that survives the sea.
• Developing, integrating and characterising new sensors, from the physical mounting and wiring through to validation and data quality.
• Building test rigs and running bench, dockside and sea trials to understand what works, what fails and why.
• Analysing logs, test data and returned hardware from C-Stars that have been at sea, then driving practical design improvements.
• Supporting a clean-sheet redesign of a C-Star subsystem, or helping take a new robot concept from an early idea to a deployable prototype.

What Oshen is

We make the ocean’s eyes and ears. We tell people what is happening across the 70% of the globe covered by ocean. We do this with C-Star constellations, swarms of one-metre wind-and-solar robots that sail the open ocean. Ours is the only surface robot to sail into a Category 5 hurricane and come back with the data. We design and build them in Plymouth and deploy them for the US Government, the Royal Navy and climate scientists, giving information across an ocean the modern world depends on and currently cannot see.

If we succeed, navies will find dark ships and underwater threats before they reach critical infrastructure. Governments will predict hurricanes and other extreme weather earlier. Scientists will better understand how the ocean and climate are changing.

The people joining now will shape both the technology and the company. Very few engineers get to take something from an idea in the workshop to a real mission in the Atlantic, then use what it learns to make the next one better. Here, you can.

Who you are

• An engineer, likely with a degree in an engineering discipline or equivalent practical experience. Two to four years of experience is a useful guide, and we welcome strong candidates earlier in their career.
• Comfortable getting hands-on with physical hardware. Experience with CAD, prototyping, testing, electronics, sensors or embedded systems is all useful, but you do not need to arrive as an expert in every area.
• Able to reason from first principles, investigate an unfamiliar problem and learn what you need to solve it.
• High ownership. You have evidence of starting, fixing and finishing difficult work without close supervision.
• A clear communicator who documents decisions, test results and processes so that other people can build on your work.
• Evidence of self-directed technical work beyond a job or a degree.
• Motivated by difficult, important problems. Maritime or naval experience is useful but not essential.

How we work

This is not a narrowly defined corporate engineering role. Customer missions at sea create real deadlines, tests sometimes fail in inconvenient places, and you will be trusted to make decisions in unfamiliar territory. You will work with a close-knit team on difficult problems with real consequences. If you want a tightly prescribed role where every answer already exists, this is probably not the right fit.

Compensation

• Equity: £25,000 – £90,000 of stock options at our most recent company valuation, depending on experience, implemented through an EMI options scheme.