Product System Engineer

Optics11 Life; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

30 days holiday per year

Fresh team lunches five times a week

International team of colleagues

Job summary

Optics11 in Amsterdam is hiring a Product System Engineer to translate the product roadmap into a coherent system architecture and verification plan. You will own system definitions, interfaces and baselines while balancing performance, manufacturability, reliability and lifecycle considerations across engineering disciplines.

You will collaborate with Product Management, Subsystem Development, V&V and Lifecycle Engineering to ensure successful product development and future roadmap evolution.

Qualifications

• MSc or PhD in a relevant engineering field.
• 8+ years in multidisciplinary product development of complex tech systems.
• Experience defining system architectures, requirements, interfaces & baselines.
• Leading technically complex engineering work in cross-disciplinary teams.
• Strong systems engineering, requirements management, risk management & verification planning.
• Experience with Polarion, DOORS, Cameo or equivalents.
• Excellent written and verbal English.
• Eligible to obtain EU/NATO security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the product system architecture, requirements, interfaces and baselines.
• Translate capabilities and roadmap into verifiable, traceable system requirements.
• Allocate requirements across subsystems to deliver intended capabilities.
• Define system-level verification strategy and support V&V activities.
• Lead system-level technical decisions balancing performance, cost and lifecycle.
• Identify and resolve cross-subsystem issues and architectural risks.
• Provide technical leadership across multidisciplinary teams.

Skills

Multidisciplinary product development

Systems engineering principles

Requirements engineering

Technical risk management

English communication (written & oral)

EU/NATO security clearance eligibility

Education

MSc or PhD in Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Physics, Photonics, Computer Engineering, or related engineering

Tools

Polarion

DOORS

Cameo

Job description

Optics11 is a fast-growing high-tech company based in Amsterdam, developing advanced fiber optic sensing systems for the most demanding environments. Our technology detects the earliest signs of failure in critical assets – from high-voltage energy infrastructure to subsea and defense applications – and gives our customers precise, real-time data they can act on.

Within our Underwater Security business we develop sensing technologies that help detect and monitor underwater threats. Our solutions include OptiBarrier, designed for immediate, over-the-horizon threat detection, and OptiArray, our low-power optical thin-line towed array for unmanned underwater vehicles and submarines.

The Role

As a Product System Engineer at Optics11, you are responsible for defining and maintaining the technical integrity of a product throughout its lifecycle. Your primary objective is to translate the Product Roadmap into a coherent, feasible, and verifiable system architecture that enables successful product realization.

You own the system definition, system architecture, allocated requirements, interfaces, system-level verification intent, and technical baselines of the product. Working across multiple engineering disciplines, you ensure subsystem solutions collectively realize the intended system capabilities while balancing technical performance, manufacturability, reliability, cost, and lifecycle considerations.

You work closely with the Product Manager, Product Owner, Subsystem Development teams, Product Integration, Verification & Validation, and Lifecycle Engineering to ensure technical decisions support successful product development and future roadmap evolution.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the product system architecture, requirements, interfaces, and technical baselines throughout the product lifecycle.

• Translate product capabilities and roadmap objectives into clear, complete, verifiable, and traceable system requirements.

• Allocate requirements across subsystems and ensure subsystem solutions collectively deliver the intended system capabilities.

• Define system-level verification strategy and criteria, and support integration, verification, qualification, and product release activities.

• Lead system-level technical decisions and trade-offs across performance, reliability, manufacturability, cost, risk, and lifecycle considerations.

• Identify and resolve cross-subsystem technical issues, dependencies, interface conflicts, and architectural risks.

• Provide technical leadership across multidisciplinary engineering teams, driving alignment, systems thinking, and continuous improvement.

Technical Ownership & Scope

• Owns the system architecture, requirements, interfaces, technical baselines, and system-level verification approach.

• Leads system-level technical trade-offs and assesses changes impacting system integrity.

• Provides technical direction and alignment across subsystem teams.

• Works within a clear scope alongside Product Management, Product Ownership, Engineering Management, subsystem teams, and V&V.

What we offer

• Join one of Europe’s fastest-growing deep‑tech scale‑ups.

• Real impact: your work directly shapes our growth and success.

• A great team in an international organisation with colleagues from more than twenty nationalities.

• A competitive salary and benefits package.

• 30 days of holiday per year.

• Fresh team lunches five times a week, plus regular team activities and company events.

Requirements

• MSc or PhD in Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Physics, Photonics, Computer Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.

• Minimum 8 years of experience in multidisciplinary product development of complex technical systems.

• Demonstrated experience defining system architectures, requirements, interfaces, and technical baselines.

• Demonstrated experience leading technically complex engineering work and driving technical decisions within multidisciplinary product development teams.

• Strong understanding of systems engineering principles, requirements engineering, interface management, technical risk management, and verification planning.

• Experience with requirements management and systems engineering tools (e.g. Polarion, DOORS, Cameo, or equivalent).

• Strong analytical and structured engineering problem‑solving skills.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.

• Eligible to obtain EU/NATO security clearance.
  

Preferred

• Experience with optical sensing systems, underwater systems, defence, or other high-reliability products.

• Experience with Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE).

• Experience with architecture trade studies and system modelling.

• Familiarity with configuration management and technical baseline management.

• Experience supporting product verification and qualification.

Screening

You will work with clients in the defense and security sectors. Obtaining a Certificate of No Objection issued by the AIVD, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service, is mandatory. This means you will need to undergo a security screening. We will explain the process and guide you through the applicable requirements.