TC
Head of Electronics & software
Contract type
Freelance
Work mode
Remote · Munich, Germany
Experience
Lead / principal · Not stated
Level inferred from job title
Job description
Head of Electronics & Software at The Exploration Company, leading and developing the multidisciplinary engineering organisation behind spacecraft avionics, flight software, GNC and electrical systems. A senior leadership role combining people leadership, engineering excellence, organisational development and technical breadth within a matrix organisation.
At a glance
- Employment
- Full-time · Employee (employment agreement)
- Work mode
- Remote · Munich, Germany
- Languages
- English
What you'll do
- Lead and develop Project Leads, discipline Leads, Principal Engineers and transversal engineering resources
- Partner with project leadership to align capability, resources and priorities with programme needs
- Help teams navigate competing priorities across projects
- Ensure clear ownership and accountability between functional leadership and project execution
- Build an organisation capable of supporting multiple programmes as the company grows
- Own workforce and headcount planning across the function
- Recruit and retain exceptional engineering talent
- Develop clear job families, role levels and assessment standards
- Partner with Talent Acquisition, engineering Leads and hiring managers to maintain a high technical hiring bar
- Lead promotion, compensation and organisational planning within the function
- Build succession plans and reduce key-person dependencies in specialist areas
- Create an organisation that remains lean, scalable and aligned with current and future programme needs
- Lead and develop the managers, Leads and senior engineers within the organisation
- Establish meaningful objectives aligned with project and company priorities
- Build clear development and technical career paths
- Strengthen mentoring, coaching and leadership capability across the organisation
- Create opportunities for engineers to gain experience across design, integration, test and operations
- Address performance challenges fairly and constructively
- Build a culture where progression is based on demonstrated capability, impact and organisational need
- Own and continuously improve engineering practices across electronics, software, GNC and electrical/harness engineering
- Establish practical standards for electronics design, software development, testing, modelling, reviews and verification
- Ensure teams understand and can effectively apply the relevant processes
- Support certification readiness, audits and continuous improvement, including applicable EN9100 requirements
- Work closely with Quality, Safety, Systems Engineering and the Chief Engineer organisation
- Use lessons from development, testing and operations to continuously improve engineering practices
What we're looking for
- Strong hands-on engineering experience in at least one of: avionics, electronics, embedded systems, flight software, GNC or electrical systems
- Enough technical breadth to operate effectively across several of these disciplines and understand how they interact
- Experience leading multidisciplinary engineering teams in a complex product environment
- Proven formal line-management experience, including developing managers and technical leaders
- Experience hiring, developing and building engineering organisations
- Experience with organisational design, workforce and capacity planning
- Experience creating or improving engineering processes, tools, standards and ways of working
- Experience operating within a matrix organisation and supporting multiple projects or programmes
- Strong coaching, mentoring, communication and influencing skills
- The technical credibility to challenge senior engineers while empowering the appropriate technical owners to make decisions
- A pragmatic approach to engineering quality, assurance and compliance, including relevant EN9100 practices
- Experience in spacecraft, launch vehicles, aerospace, defence, aviation, robotics or another complex safety-critical engineering environment would be particularly relevant
- Leads with high standards, humility and low ego
- Enjoys developing people rather than simply directing them
- Empowers strong technical Leads and avoids becoming a bottleneck
- Can challenge experienced engineers constructively
- Makes decisions using data and sound engineering judgement
- Balances immediate programme pressures with long-term organisational capability
- Creates clarity where responsibilities cross organisational boundaries
- Promotes transparency, accountability, collaboration and continuous learning
- Believes in extreme ownership and engineering first principles
- Remains close enough to the engineering to understand the challenges our teams are solving
Your team
Electronics & Software
A multidisciplinary organisation spanning avionics, communications and electrical power systems; flight software (FSW); guidance, navigation and control (GNC); electrical wiring and interconnection systems (EWIS), including harness engineering; and future projects and advanced electronics and software development. Engineering teams work in a matrix organisation combining functional leadership with project-based delivery.
Benefits
- Relocation assistance is provided for those willing to relocate including visa sponsorship where applicable
Apply
Direct apply at The Exploration Company
Opens the job posting at The Exploration Company
About The Exploration Company
We are democratising space
Key facts
- Teams and stakeholders across a European organisation with main European sites
- Partners with Zinc Work Limited (UK) for background checks
- Relocation assistance and visa sponsorship where applicable
Partners & customers
Zinc Work Limited
What they value
- We're Agile - we make decisions fast whilst keeping our goals and systems in mind
- We're Open and Collaborative - we are transparent about risks and obstacles, so that we can cooperate to overcome them
- We have a lot of Fun - we refuel our energy knowing we are democratising space
- Extreme ownership and engineering first principles