Senior Systems Engineer, Precision Timing Platforms

National Physical Laboratory (NPL); Teddington; On-site; GBP 52,000 - 74,000; Full time

Job summary

National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is seeking an experienced Systems Engineer for its Time & Frequency department in the UK. You will lead early lifecycle activities, define architectures, and model system behaviour to support a resilient time distribution capability critical to infrastructure.

You will work with multidisciplinary teams, manage interfaces, ensure traceability from needs to design, and communicate risks and trade-offs clearly throughout the project lifecycle.

Qualifications

• Degree in Engineering or closely related discipline.
• Experience applying systems engineering to complex multidisciplinary systems.
• Experience with early lifecycle activities: requirements, architecture, modelling.

Responsibilities

• Support early lifecycle systems engineering activities: concept definition, functional decomposition, requirements development.
• Define system and subsystem architectures with interfaces and packaging.
• Model and analyse system behavior and performance to inform design decisions and reduce risk.
• Communicate technical risks, assumptions, and trade-offs clearly and proportionately.
• Produce clear artefacts: requirements, architectures, models, in line with processes and timelines.
• Ensure traceability from user needs to system requirements and design decisions.

Skills

Systems engineering

Requirements analysis

System architecture

Modelling

Traceability

Education

Engineering degree

Job description

National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is seeking an experienced Systems Engineer for its Time & Frequency department in the UK. You will lead early lifecycle activities, define architectures, and model system behaviour to support a resilient time distribution capability critical to infrastructure.

You will work with multidisciplinary teams, manage interfaces, ensure traceability from needs to design, and communicate risks and trade-offs clearly throughout the project lifecycle.