Senior Systems Engineer – Combat Aircraft (Security)

The role

You will define and govern the security architecture for the CA-1 combat aircraft platform. This includes developing security concepts, managing cryptographic lifecycles, and ensuring compliance with national and NATO regulations.

What you will do

• Guide hardware and software design teams through security requirements and architectural decisions
• Develop and own the aircraft-level security concept
• Define and implement engineering design processes for product security
• Create and maintain compliance artefacts for national and NATO security authorities
• Design security architecture for intra- and inter-vehicle communications
• Develop design concepts for aircraft-level security functions like erase and zeroise
• Conduct vulnerability analysis and adversarial testing on platform systems
• Define the platform cryptographic management concept
• Engage directly with defence customers to capture requirements and present solutions

Required qualifications

• Designed and delivered end-to-end security architectures for military or defence-grade systems
• Understand and can apply NATO security standards and national-level regulations including relevant STANAGs and German national security frameworks
• Developed cryptographic management concepts for complex platforms
• Conducted structured vulnerability analysis and adversarial threat assessments on safety- or mission-critical networked systems
• Defined communication security designs for intra- and inter-platform data exchange in a defence or government context
• Professionally fluent in German

Nice to have

• Familiarity with IFF systems and their associated security and certification requirements
• Experience designing erase and zeroise functions at aircraft or platform level
• Background in airborne mission systems or avionics security, including familiarity with DO-326A / ED-202A
• Exposure to Common Criteria evaluation processes or equivalent assurance frameworks
• Experience supporting security authority interactions as a named security engineering lead

Benefits

• Competitive salary and VSOP options
• Relocation support: up to €2,500 and 4 weeks temporary accommodation
• Learning: €500/£450 yearly allowance
• Gym membership and mental health support (Nilo.health)
• Regular company events and monthly social allowances
• 22 weeks fully paid parental leave for primary caregivers
• 6 weeks parental leave for secondary caregivers
• 5 days of paid family emergency leave
• 100% remote work option during pregnancy and phased return to work
• Hands-on onboarding program

About the company

Helsing is a defence AI company on a mission to protect democracies through technological leadership. They are an ambitious team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers.