Programme Manager - Radio Communications & EW Systems

About the role

Onodrim is building Europe's largest defence and industrial platform. We acquire specialist manufacturers in critical defence and dual-use supply chains, then invest behind their growth with capital, technology and operating know-how.

Radio communications is one of the areas where we are building real depth – resilient tactical networks, software-defined and commercial-silicon radios, and the companies that make them. The Programme Manager for Radio Communications and EW runs the programmes that turn that intent into delivered capability. You'll be assigned to specific programmes – an internal product, a joint development with a partner or research institute, a customer trial, a technology integration at a portfolio company – and own them from scope to acceptance.

This is a role for an engineer who has moved into running things. You'll need enough radio depth to judge a design review, read a test report, and enough programme discipline to keep budget, timeline, suppliers and customer fully aligned when all four are moving. You'll spend time on the bench, at trials and at partner sites, not only in meetings.

What you'll do

• Run the programme. Own scope, plan, budget, risk register and schedule for each programme you're assigned; report status weekly in numbers, escalate early, and execute well to completion.
• Write the requirement. Turn a customer need, an operational problem or a strategic decision into a concept of operations, a system requirement and a set of acceptance criteria that engineers can build to and users can test against.
• Manage the parties. Coordinate suppliers, semiconductor and module vendors, research institutes, partner companies and portfolio-company engineering teams; negotiate statements of work, hold them to milestones and resolve conflicts.
• Judge the engineering. Chair design reviews, read test and trial reports, challenge link budgets and architecture choices, and decide when something is good enough to proceed.
• Run the trials. Plan and execute lab tests, field trials and customer demonstrations – including in contested-spectrum and EW-stressed conditions – and turn the results into successful customer decisions.
• Support the deal team. Contribute the radio-domain view to technical diligence of acquisition targets and partnerships: what they have built, how well it works and what it would take to finish.
• Bridge to the portfolio. Take programme outcomes into the companies we own – a product to industrialise, a technology to integrate, a process to fix – and work with their teams and our Forward Deployed Operators to make it stick.
• Keep it compliant. Manage spectrum approvals, export control, security classification and customer qualification requirements on your programmes.
• Feed the strategy. Bring what you learn on the programme – technology, suppliers, customers, competitors – to shape what Onodrim invests in next.

Requirements

What you'll bring

• A degree in electrical engineering, communications engineering, physics or a closely related discipline.
• 5+ years in radio communications, including at least 3 years hands-on as an engineer – RF, baseband, protocol stack, systems or test – before moving into programme or product responsibility.
• At least 2 years running programmes or projects with real ownership: budget, schedule, suppliers and a customer who signs off.
• Working knowledge of modern radio: software-defined radio, 3GPP/LTE/5G and its use in private and tactical networks, mesh and ad-hoc networking, and what jamming, interception and spectrum contention do to each.
• Experience with field trials or operational testing of radio equipment, ideally with military or public-safety users.
• Comfort managing external engineering partners – vendors, institutes, subcontractors – and holding them to commitments.
• Structured, numbers-driven working style: risk registers, test plans and status reports that someone can act on.
• Clear, direct communication in English, written and spoken, with engineers, suppliers and customers alike.
• Willingness to travel extensively across Europe – partner sites, trials, portfolio companies.
• Right to work in Switzerland or the EU, and eligibility for a national security clearance in at least one of our operating countries.

Nice to have

• We operate our business in English but fluency in one or more additional European languages is helpful.
• Military service in a signals, communications or electronic-warfare role, or time as a user of tactical radio systems.
• An existing national security clearance.
• Experience with commercial cellular silicon and modules in defence or industrial products, and the certification and supply-chain questions that come with them.
• Familiarity with tactical data links, TAK-style situational-awareness tools, or multi-bearer (PACE) communications architectures.
• Experience on the supplier side of a prime or armed-forces procurement – proposal, qualification, framework contracts.
• Exposure to export control (EU dual-use, ITAR/EAR) and classified-programme handling.
• Experience in a start-up or small team where you did whatever the programme needed.