Team Lead - Electric/Electronics - Hardware

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

We're looking for a electric/electronics team lead to mentor, and motivate a team of hardware electronics/electrical design engineers, fostering a collaborative and innovative work environment focused on aerospace and drone challenges. You will be responsible for providing technical guidance, assisting with complex problem-solving, particularly regarding SWaP (Size, Weight, and Power) optimisation, reliability, and environmental qualification.

The Day-To-Day

Team Leadership & Mentorship:

• Manage team performance, conduct reviews, and support professional development tailored to aerospace design methodologies.

Hardware Design & Development:

• Lead the design, development, and testing of complex electronic systems for small drones and aerospace platforms, including avionics, flight control systems, payload integration, and power management modules.
• Oversee detailed design work at system, subsystem, or electronic board level, including component selection (emphasizing space-grade or high-reliability parts), circuit architecture, schematic capture, and advanced PCB layout design for high-density, low-EMI applications.
• Drive rapid prototyping and conduct simulation design and analysis, focusing on signal integrity, power integrity, thermal performance, and EMI compliance in compact systems.
• Ensure designs comply with stringent industry standards, regulations, and safety protocols relevant to aerospace (e.g., DO-160, DO-254, ARP4754A, ARP4761, ISO 26262).

Project Management & Coordination:

• Manage engineering projects from conception to completion, ensuring timely delivery, adherence to aerospace-grade quality, and budget compliance.
• Oversee requirements engineering, validation, and verification activities throughout the project lifecycle, ensuring traceability and compliance with design assurance levels (DAL) and certification requirements.
• Collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams (mechanical, firmware, software, product management, manufacturing) to define comprehensive project requirements and specifications specific to drone and aerospace systems.
• Responsible for hardware requirement capture, analysis, and detailed documentation (e.g., BOM, DFMEA, FMECA) adhering to aerospace standards.

Process Improvement & Quality Assurance:

• Contribute to the development of processes and methodologies, ensuring existing company processes and quality standards (e.g., AS9100) are maintained and evolved for aerospace product development.
• Oversee rigorous testing and validation of circuit designs, including environmental stress screening (ESS), HALT, and other aerospace-specific qualification tests, ensuring performance under extreme conditions.

You Should Apply If You Have A

• Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, or a related field is required.
• Typically 5+ years of experience in hardware electronics/electrical design, with at least 1-2 years in a team leadership role, specifically within aerospace, avionics, or small drone development.
• Proven experience in leading engineering teams and projects within a regulated industry.

Technical Skills:

• Expertise in analog and digital circuit design, including microcontrollers (e.g., ARM Cortex-M/R), FPGAs, high-speed interfaces, and power electronics optimized for efficiency and minimal footprint.
• Strong hands-on experience in schematic capture and advanced PCB layout design tools (e.g., Altium Designer, Cadence Allegro), focusing on impedance control, signal integrity, power integrity, and DFM/DFA for high-reliability assemblies.
• Experience with SPICE and other circuit simulation tools (e.g., Multisim, LTSpice) for detailed analysis.
• Proficiency with various interfaces and communication protocols common in aerospace (e.g., CAN bus, ARINC 429, MIL-STD-1553, Ethernet) and drone-specific protocols.
• Knowledge of DFM, DFA, DFT, and particularly design for reliability (DfR) and maintainability (DfMaint).
• Extensive experience with hardware qualification (CVT, DVT, PVT) and comprehensive environmental testing (vibration, shock, thermal cycling, altitude) as per standards like DO-160.
• Expertise in mechanical (ECAD/MCAD) integration for highly compact systems, thermal management, and electrical/EMI integration to ensure robust performance and compliance with EMC/EMI certification for airborne systems.
• Direct experience working in the aerospace or automotive (safety-critical systems) industries is essential, with a strong understanding of their unique design processes, standards, and regulatory frameworks.

Note: We operate in an industry where women, as well as other minority groups, are systematically under-represented. We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications; ability and impact cannot be summarised in a few bullet points.

Nice To Have

• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and presentation skills to effectively interface with internal teams, customers, and regulators.
• Strong problem-solving skills and meticulous attention to detail, crucial for safety-critical systems.
• Decisive and proactive, with the ability to take decisions under uncertainty and pressure in aerospace development.
• Strong organizational skills to plan, schedule, and coordinate workloads for critical milestones.

Join Helsing And Work With World-Leading Experts In Their Fields

• Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns
• The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world
• Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defence industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward
• In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts
• We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about

What We Offer

• A focus on outcomes, not time-tracking
• Competitive compensation and stock options

• Relocation Support

• Social and education allowances
• Regular company events and all-hands to bring together employees as one team across Europe
• A hands-on onboarding program (affectionately labelled “Infraduction”), in which you will be building tooling and applications to be used across the company. This is your opportunity to learn our tech stack, explore the company, and learn how we get things done - all whilst working with other engineering teams from day one 

Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity. Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.

  Helsing's Candidate Privacy and Confidentiality Regime can be found here.