About ISS Aerospace
ISS Aerospace designs and builds unmanned systems that work where they're needed — in the air, on the ground, on and under the water. Our work spans platform development, payload integration, wireless power transfer, IoT sensor networks, and the flight and field test campaigns that prove it all. We're a technically deep team that ships real hardware to real customers.
The role
We're looking for a Senior UxV Hardware Systems Engineer to own unmanned platform hardware from early concept through integration, qualification and field deployment. This is a hands-on senior role — you'll be designing, integrating and de-risking real vehicles, not just drawing architectures on a whiteboard. You'll also lead a small group of junior engineers and take delivery ownership of one or more programmes end-to-end.
If your background is crewed aerospace, robotics, or complex mechanical/electrical systems and you want to move into unmanned, we're genuinely open to that. What matters is engineering judgement, a strong delivery record, and the ability to get up to speed in a new domain quickly.
What you'll do
- Own hardware systems architecture for UxV platforms across one or more domains (air / ground / surface / subsea), including airframe or chassis, propulsion, power, avionics, payloads and comms.
- Turn customer and mission requirements into integrated designs — make the trade-offs on mass, power, endurance, SWaP, cost and manufacturability, and document the reasoning so others can follow it.
- Drive integration of COTS and bespoke sub-systems: motors and ESCs, autopilots, sensors, radios, cameras, tethers, wireless power links, IoT modules.
- Lead build, bench test and flight/field test activities. Troubleshoot under pressure when something doesn't behave on the day.
- Manage a small engineering team — allocate work, coach juniors, review designs, unblock problems, and make sure what ships is something we're proud of.
- Run one or more programmes of work: plan, budget, track progress, report to programme management and customers, flag risk early.
- Contribute to test campaign planning and execution — requirements traceability, test card design, trials support, root-cause investigation on issues.
- Work closely with software, firmware and operations colleagues at ISS and with partners (including OSL on joint ISSOS programmes).
- Uphold engineering standards, configuration control and a strong safety culture, and help raise the bar as we grow.
What you'll bring (essential)
- Degree in aerospace, mechanical, electrical/electronic, mechatronic or a closely related engineering discipline — or an equivalent hands-on track record.
- 6+ years of systems engineering on complex electromechanical products, with a clear record of taking designs from concept into service.
- Strong integration ability — you're comfortable stitching together mechanical, electrical and electronic sub-systems and making the whole thing actually work.
- Confident with 3D CAD (Fusion 360 or similar), schematic capture and common lab and test equipment.
- Experience leading smaller teams or mentoring junior engineers, and ready to take on more of that.
- Clear technical communicator — specs, drawings, trade studies, test reports, and honest updates to stakeholders.
- Practical, delivery-minded, and calm when things don't go to plan.
Nice to have
- Direct experience on UAV, UGV, USV, AUV or other unmanned platforms.
- Familiarity with autopilots (ArduPilot, Pixhawk-family or equivalents), MAVLink, and ground control station environments.
- Exposure to RF / comms links, tethers, wireless power transfer, or LoRa / IoT networks.
- Experience with aerospace or defence qualification frameworks (CAP 722, STANAG, DO-series, Def Stan, Mil-Std or similar).
- DOORS or equivalent requirements management tooling; MBSE exposure; configuration management in a regulated environment.
- Prior flight test or trials experience in challenging environments.
- Experience working under ITAR / export control or UK government security contexts.
About you
You care about engineering done properly, and you also ship. You'll argue a technical point hard and change your mind when the data tells you to. You like working with people from different disciplines, and you think leadership is mostly about making the people around you better at their jobs.