Principal Systems Engineer – Edinburgh City Centre

Salary: £65,000 – 65,000 per year

Requirements

• We are seeking an experienced Principal Systems Engineer to lead integration, test, evaluation and acceptance activities for advanced electro-optical and infrared sensing systems within the GCAP environment.
• We are looking for someone with experience leading system integration and test activities on complex engineered products, ideally within highly regulated industries such as aerospace, defence, sensing, or other safety-critical environments.
• We need proven experience in late lifecycle delivery, particularly post-critical design review integration, qualification, acceptance, and release.
• We require a strong systems engineering background covering requirements, architecture, interfaces, verification, and acceptance.
• Desirable: experience with model-based systems engineering (MBSE).
• Desirable: experience working with digital twins, synthetic environments, HIL/SIL environments, or virtual integration frameworks.
• Desirable: experience within electro-optical / infrared sensing systems (EOIR), mission systems, or sensor fusion environments.
• Desirable: experience defining test equipment, test environments, and facility requirements.
• This role is subject to pre-employment screening in line with the UK Governments Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS).
• Additional National Security Vetting may apply, which could include eligibility for Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV).

Responsibilities

• We are responsible for defining and executing the system integration and verification strategy from detailed design through integration, qualification, acceptance, and transition to production.
• We lead integration and verification approaches appropriate for late-lifecycle delivery, ensuring readiness for hardware/software integration, qualification, acceptance, and release.
• We develop and maintain the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) electro-optical / infrared sensing systems ITEA master plan, including integration sequencing, verification logic, dependencies, risks, and maturity criteria.
• We define progressive integration strategies from component, subsystem, equipment, and system-level verification through formal acceptance.
• We lead and define ITEA-related strategy and associated systems artefacts, including ITEA requirements.
• We develop the system integration and test architecture, ensuring testability is designed into the product architecture.
• We define verification architectures including physical integration environments, hardware-in-the-loop environments, synthetic/digital test environments, and laboratory and field test configurations.
• We ensure requirements, interfaces, performance budgets, and verification methods remain aligned throughout integration.
• We lead development of the EOIR strategy for digital and synthetic integration/test environments.
• We define model-based verification approaches that enable early risk reduction, accelerated integration, and increased defect discovery prior to hardware availability.
• We support digital thread adoption between requirements, architecture, interfaces, models, and verification artefacts.
• We liaise with the wider GCAP Test & Integration community to ensure consistency, reuse of best practice, and alignment of facilities, tooling, and processes.
• We coordinate integration activities across EOIR, subsystem teams, software, electronics, mechanical, detector, optics, and processing disciplines.
• We support design reviews, verification reviews, readiness reviews, qualification reviews, and customer acceptance activities.
• We identify integration and verification risks early and develop mitigation plans.
• We support programme planning, schedule development, cost estimation, and technical maturity assessments.
• We provide technical leadership and mentoring to systems engineers supporting ITEA activities.

Technologies

• Hardware
• Support
• Security
• Sensor Fusion

More

We are Leonardo, a global leader in Aerospace, Defence, and Security, headquartered in Italy with over 53,000 people worldwide and 8,500 across 9 UK sites. This is a permanent, hybrid role based onsite in Edinburgh, offering a salary of £53,500 to £68,000.

• generous leave with up to 12 additional flexi-days each year
• an award-winning pension with up to 15% employer contribution
• free access to mental health support and financial advice
• employee-led inclusion networks
• a bonus scheme for management level and below
• access to 4,000 online courses
• a referral reward programme
• flexible benefits worth up to £500 annually
• flexible working with hybrid options

We are committed to building an inclusive, accessible, and welcoming workplace.

last updated 36 week of 2026

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