Senior Engineering Manager

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

Optronics & Missile Electronics (OME)

We help forces to find the right information at the right time to make the right decision. For over 130 years we’ve proudly led the development of Optronics for military, scientific and commercial use.  We cover three sectors: Air, Land and Sea.

Senior Engineering Manager

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Senior Engineering Manager within Thales Optronics and Missile Electronics (OME). The successful candidate will initially undertake the role of a Senior Engineering Manager in the Sea business. 

This role will be on one of the largest development and production projects within OME. This role will be part of the leadership team for a large multi-entity delivery team focussed on specific development within the Sea business.

As a Senior Engineering Manager you will work in collaboration with the overall Programme Director, the Senior Programme Managers, the Sea Portfolio Engineering Manager and the Head of Engineering Delivery to lead the design and development through to qualification and acceptance for development and production projects within OME and the Sea business.

In this role you will be responsible for:

• forming and leading high performing, large multi-discipline and multi-entity engineering teams to generate engineering solutions that meet the Customer needs
• producing the strategy that will ensure delivery of all engineering aspects of the programme whilst meeting the governance required within the business
• working with the Programme Manager and Programme Director to define the organisation and work breakdown required to deliver to the Customer needs
• defining the project specific processes, practices and tools to be used to ensure delivery
• defining and being in charge of meeting cost, schedule and quality of the whole engineering delivery for the programme
• defining the engineering team’s work packages in terms of resources required, budgets assigned to each task, risks and assumptions on these and the timescales to deliver within
• the planning and prioritisation of activities required to deliver the solution to the contract schedule, costs and quality
• the day to day management of the engineering team’s activities ensuring proactive management of issues, opportunities and risks
• managing and reporting the engineering efficiency for the project
• the identification of re-use opportunities across the project
• the alignment of the project defined solution to the Product Roadmap
• acting as the People Manager for the engineering team on the project and provide feedback into the people manager reviews with the functional discipline leads

The successful candidate will have an extensive background in engineering and engineering management on large complex development programmes with demonstrable experience in successfully defining and leading the delivery of multi-disciplinary engineering projects.

They will be highly customer focused with excellent communication skills and have the ability to work in a fast moving environment with multiple parallel objectives. Knowledge and experience of naval products and projects would be beneficial to this role.

The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate the following, aligned to the Thales Leadership Behavioural Model:

• acting with agility to ensure that the business objectives remain in focus
• dealing with multiple strands of complexity to achieve business objectives
• engaging with stakeholders to achieve a common goal
• creating a competitive advantage by managing risk, identifying opportunities and fostering continuous improvement
• supporting the development of others to ensure we continuously improve for our customers

Benefits:

• Performance-related bonus (grade dependent)
• Car cash allowance (grade dependent)
• Half day every Friday, usually finishing around 13:00
• 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata)
• 24 hours volunteering paid for
• Private healthcare (grade dependent)
• Pension scheme
• Life cover
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app
• Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers
• Gym membership discounts

This role will work closely with the Programme Manager and the Project Design Authority (PDA) for the specific project. This role will report to the Sea Portfolio Engineering Manager.

Security Clearance Requirement:

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions.  This role requires Security Clearance (SC). It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. 

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years.  In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels.

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At Thales, we ensure equal opportunities, pay and working conditions for all. The benefits we offer include private medical insurance, buying or selling annual leave, cycle to work schemes, employee discounts, paid volunteering day, stocks and shares, annual bonus and much more depending on the role. Read more about our benefits here.

We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring. Discover more about our programmes, employee networks, wellbeing policies, and inclusive features here.

If this role isn’t quite right for you, we encourage you to join our talent community where your details will be shared with our recruitment teams for other potential opportunities. Join the Talent Community here.

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