Systems Engineer (Requirements Manager), Aviation

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

You will join a team developing a state-of-the-art autonomous system that will shape the future of air combat. As a member of our engineering team, you will own and drive the end-to-end requirements engineering process across both onboard and ground-based systems, from initial customer negotiation through to final product qualification, while supporting the systems development. This involves establishing and maintaining the requirements baseline, managing traceability across all development artefacts, and bridging the gap between customer-level contractual obligations and the software and systems teams delivering them. Your primary impact will be ensuring that every requirement is unambiguous, traceable, testable, and consistently tied to a clear method of compliance. You will collaborate daily with our AI software specialists, systems engineers, V&V specialists, and quality assurance team to guarantee the developed product meets contractual qualification requirements and exceeds customer expectations.

The day-to-day

• Capture, author, and manage system-level requirements for the aircraft and associated ground systems, translating contractual obligations and operational needs into clear, verifiable technical requirements
• Support the planning of all requirements related activities together with program management team
• Define the product breakdown structure, and the requirements structure according to the program needs, aiming efficient integration between teams
• Own and maintain the requirements baseline and traceability matrix, ensuring full bidirectional traceability from customer-level contractual requirements down to software and hardware development artefacts, and up through V&V evidence
• Negotiate system requirements and Methods of Compliance (MoC), and validate derived requirements in close collaboration with our software and engineering teams
• Establish, maintain, and continuously improve the requirements management toolchain (DOORS, Polarion, Jama, or equivalent), ensuring seamless integration with MBSE models and the V&V test environment
• Support and drive the adoption of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approaches alongside traditional text-based requirements, pragmatically bridging the two to suit programme needs
• Define and enforce requirements quality standards, ensuring all requirements are verifiable, unambiguous, and appropriately allocated to system components and sub-systems
• Conduct regular requirements review boards with systems engineering, software, and V&V teams to jointly develop impact assessments for proposed requirement changes and manage the change control process
• Prepare requirements-related documentation to meet compliance and certification standards (ARP4754A), providing regular status updates to engineering and programme management teams

You should apply if you

• Demonstrate practical competence in managing requirements for the development of automotive, avionics or electronic warfare systems, from initial customer negotiation to final qualification
• Systems engineering experience, turning customer requirements into products
• Utilise requirements management tooling: DOORS, Polarion, Jama, or equivalent and have integrated these tools within a broader systems engineering and V&V toolchain
• Apply Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) methodologies using tools such as Cameo Systems Modeler or Enterprise Architect (SysML/UML), pragmatically combining MBSE with natural language requirements approaches
• Translate high-level stakeholder needs into formal, traceable, and testable requirements that drive system design and V&V activities through behavioural and functional modelling
• Apply aerospace (or automotive) standards such as ARP4754B in a requirements engineering context, ensuring requirements quality directly impacts software qualification and certification
• Coordinate effectively across multi-disciplinary teams and guide colleagues towards aerospace standards compliance
• Report and present requirements status and technical matters clearly and effectively to both internal and external stakeholders, including customer and authority representatives

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

• Experience working on defence related programmes

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

• Competitive salary and VSOP options

• Relocation support : up to €2,500 and 4 weeks temporary accommodation

• Learning : €500/£450 yearly allowance

• Health & wellness : gym membership and mental health support (Nilo.health)

• Social : regularly company events and monthly social allowances

• Enhanced parental leave : 22 weeks fully paid for primary caregivers & 6 weeks for secondary caregivers.

• Family support: 5 days of paid family emergency leave, 100% remote work option during pregnancy and phased return to work

These are the core benefits across all locations, there may be additional benefits in certain locations.

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 .