System Engineer - System Architecture - Contra

Who we are Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership, so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards. As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously. We are an ambitious and committed team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers. We are looking for mission-driven people to join our European teams – and apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology in defence, its benefits, and its ethical implications. The role As a Systems Engineer for C-UAS System-of-Systems, you own the high-level architecture of a distributed air defence capability. You define the top-level architecture (L0 and L1), partitioning the capability into network, sensor, and effector subsystems and the interfaces between them. The architecture is open and hardware agnostic: any qualified node can join the network. It is controlled centrally but is designed to keep operating when nodes are lost or contested, so that no single point of failure breaks the chain. This is the layer that enables engage-on-remote and launch-on-remote, where the effector need not sit with the sensor that cued it. This is a role for someone who thinks at the level of the whole system. Your decisions on architecture, networking, and interfaces determine whether a distributed capability performs as one coherent whole under real operational conditions. The day-to-day • Own the top-level (L0/L1) architecture of the C-UAS system-of-systems, partitioning the mission into network, sensor, and effector subsystems • Specify the network capabilities that let distributed nodes share a common air picture and coordinate engagements, including decentralised operation when the central command node is degraded or absent • Derive network, sensor, and effector requirements from the operational concept, and own the trade-offs between coverage, resilience, latency, and cost • Translate operational concepts into a coherent system architecture and clear engagement concepts, then hold that architecture consistent as the design matures • Keep the architecture open and hardware agnostic, establishing the interfaces that let any qualified node join the network • Enable engage-on-remote and launch-on-remote by defining how cueing, track handover, and fire control flow across nodes • Produce a structured architecture that can be exposed externally to partners and customers at the right level of abstraction, without disclosing sensitive detail • Collaborate daily with the situational awareness and interceptor integration teams, and with AI, software, and hardware engineers, to keep the system-of-systems coherent You should apply if you • Have hands-on experience architecting distributed systems or systems-of-systems, ideally for defence, air defence, C-UAS, or comparable networked mission systems • Can define top-level architectures and derive network, sensor, and effector requirements from an operational concept • Understand distributed and decentralised system design: how nodes share state, degrade gracefully, and coordinate without a single point of failure • Have a strong foundation in requirements management and interface definition • Can communicate an architecture clearly to both internal engineering teams and external partners and customers • Hold a university degree in Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace, Computer Science, or a related field • Are business fluent in German and English • Are willing to travel • Your personal values match ours: ownership, initiative, dedication to mission, speed and inclusiveness Note: We operate in a