Supporting Tech Lead - Maritime

About the role

Helsing's maritime team is developing next-generation uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), including the SG-1 Fathom platform and the Lura AI system. As Supporting Tech Lead, you will sit at the centre of that effort, providing the whole-system engineering perspective needed to move the programme from prototype to a documented, repeatable, production-ready platform across a 40-unit build.

What you'll do

• Ensure every design decision accounts for manufacturing, assembly, and test from the outset, so that unit 37 can be built identically to unit 1
• Own design documentation, version control, and assembly instructions to a standard complete enough for someone outside the room to build from
• Support supplier selection and qualification, identifying volume-available components, custom-development requirements, and single-source risks that could affect programme delivery
• Lead the integration of all subsystems, including the flight-controller board, edge compute, hydrophone array, satcom, network router, and sensor suite, ensuring each interface is clearly defined and validated
• Coordinate with the Software Tech Lead to ensure the on-glider software stack and hardware requirements remain mutually consistent throughout the development cycle
• Define and execute the test strategy from bench through tank trials to open-water sea trials, capturing findings and iterating the design accordingly
• Apply whole-system UUV knowledge to resolve competing design approaches and make well-reasoned calls to keep the programme moving
• Own trade-off decisions that span mechanical, electrical, and embedded software boundaries, articulating reasoning with enough clarity to secure team alignment

What you'll need

• Have built, integrated, tested, and deployed complex electromechanical systems in real operational environments, not in simulation or on paper
• Make systems-level engineering decisions that span mechanical, electrical, and embedded software boundaries with clarity and confidence
• Resolve technical trade-offs under ambiguity, document your reasoning transparently, and bring a multi-disciplinary team to a shared decision
• Have led design reviews and coordinated technical output across engineering teams with different domain specialisms
• Know when a design is ready to build and when it requires further iteration, and have the judgement to act on that distinction

Nice to have

• Direct experience with UUVs, AUVs, or underwater gliders, including buoyancy-driven platforms, variable buoyancy systems, or underwater propulsion
• Familiarity with subsea communications (Iridium SBD), underwater acoustics, or edge compute platforms such as Jetson
• Experience delivering within a defence or defence-adjacent programme, including LARS and vessel operations

What they offer

• Work directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing ethical and geopolitical concerns
• Operate in a domain with highly unusual technical requirements where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital
• Access to work frequently at the state of the art in technical innovation across reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, and deployment infrastructure