Technical Communications Research Lead

Role Purpose

To provide technical leadership in the area of Secure Military communications in order to meet business objectives and deliver growth.

The role will work with programme managers, business across the company to develop winning proposals and to deliver compelling consultancy on future secure military network solutions.

The individual will also support the technical strategy within a business area.

This will involve interpretation of business goals and drivers, the identification of required changes in capabilities.  They will oversee technical work and be forward leaning, shaping the solutions for the future.

Key Accountabilities

The role will be responsible for:

Leadership: Lead project teams to deliver solutions using best practice. Success will depend on your ability to manage and guide junior staff to deliver solutions for new and existing customers.
Delivery: Responsible for providing technical leadership for programme, project and bidding activities.

In Year Accountabilities:

• Provide effective technical leadership and support to the business both in delivery or programmes and bidding activities.
• Provide technical assurance by understanding and interpreting the appropriate technical standards that comply with statutory, regulatory, company and project specific processes and procedures.
• To understand the market requirements and future technology developments and apply them to technical solutions.
• To support the development of the Technical Disciplines and support resourcing decisions.

Responsible for the development of:

• Design Certifications
• Technical Delivery Plans
• High Level Documentation
• Detailed Design Documentation
• Testing schedules at component, system and user levels

Key Capabilities/Knowledge

• Proven interpersonal/communication skills.
• A scientist/engineer/leader with a background of working on a range of project types.
• Possess the leadership skills required to lead the technical team to contribute to the growth and success of the business.
• Stimulates creative ideas and integrates their contributions into attractive solutions.
• A technical leader who can perform complex engineering/technical assignments developing creative, yet practical solutions to customer problems, challenging conventional or traditional methods or procedures where required.
• Acts as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) and typically resolves problems where a precedent may not exist.
• Responsible for identifying problems and providing pragmatic solutions, in conjunction with customers, users and colleagues, and capable of scoping out and assembling high quality written project documentation (e.g. proposals, reports etc).

Domain Specific Skills

• Deep knowledge of Line of Sight (LOS) and Beyond Line Of Sight (BLOS) systems including
• HF including 2G/3G and 4G
• VHF Combat Net Radio
• UHF wideband  including Mobile Adhoc NETworks (MANET)
• Satellite Communications (SATCOM) including Mil Sat/Civ Sat LEO MEO and GEO constellation services
• 802.11 WiFi based solutions including ad and ay 60 GHz
• Understanding of RF propagation in both LOS and BLOS environments and the physical layer elements of the system relating to key performance attributes e.g. antennas, spectrum access, modulation and coding.
• Ideally deep knowledge of military Comms systems including Bowman, Falcon and/or Skynet5/6.
• Strong system engineering background understanding requirements capture, integrations planning and testing.
• Expert technical ability to collect and analyse data from multiple sources, reason out trends and outliers and provide actionable advice pitched at the correct level for the audience through reports or presentations.
• Responsible for successfully leading and delivering multiple, high value, research, consultancy and engineering activities with large, multi-disciplinary and cross-Industry and Military partner organisations.

Experience & Qualifications

• A first degree in Science or Engineering, or an equivalent, nationally recognised, professional qualification, with typically over 5 years of further on the job experience and growth of key skills, working in the domain and backed up with a tangible track record of achievement. 
• Role holder is likely to be respected in their field with experience of delivering technical contributions in the domain of resilient RF communications.
• Has good commercial awareness; has a good knowledge of how the technical function contributes to the business and a good understanding of competitors.
• Uses conceptual and innovative thinking; evaluates situations using multiple sources of information; makes complex judgements based on advanced analytical thought.
• CPD continues, aiming towards a higher class of professional membership or similar accreditation, and once achieved, actively using it to benefit the role holder and QinetiQ.

#ITDDQ123

Why join QinetiQ?

As we continue to grow into new markets around the world, there’s never been a more exciting time to join QinetiQ. The formula for success is our appetite for innovation and having the courage to take on a wide variety of complex challenges.

You’ll experience a unique working environment where teams from different backgrounds, disciplines and experience enjoy collaborating widely and openly as we undertake this exciting and rewarding journey. Through effective teamwork, and pulling together, you’ll get to experience what happens when we all share different perspectives, blend disciplines, and link technologies; constantly discovering new ways of solving complex problems in an diverse and inclusive environment where you can be authentic, feel valued and realise your full potential. Read more about our diverse and inclusive workplace culture here.  

Joining QinetiQ offers you an opportunity to work on a broad range of interesting defence-based projects with vast career progression across a global organisation in addition to competitive personal and professional benefits.  You’ll receive a highly competitive salary and benefits package: our basic salaries are very attractive as we constantly review what’s happening in the market. The range of benefits that we offer include, adaptive and flexible working, generous holiday entitlements, Health Cash Plan, Private Medical Insurance and Dental Insurance and much more. 

About QinetiQ

As a company of over 6,000 dedicated professionals, we are a world-centre of excellence in research and development and act as a catalyst for fast-track innovation, offering outstanding experimentation facilities, and technical, engineering and scientific expertise. QinetiQ is made up of dedicated experts in defence, aerospace, security and related markets, all working together to explore new ways of protecting what matters most. Being part of QinetiQ means being central to the safety and security of the world around us. Partnering with our customers, we help to save lives; reduce risks to society; and maintain the global infrastructure on which we all depend. Come and find out how you can play a role.

Please note that many roles in QinetiQ are subject to national security vetting. Applicants that already hold the appropriate level of vetting may be able to transfer it upon appointment, subject to approval. A number of roles are also subject to restrictions on access to information that mean factors such as nationality, previous nationalities held and the country in which you were born may have an effect on the roles that you can be employed in.