Computer Systems Architect

Location: Crawley, United Kingdom

Thales is a global technology leader with more than 83,000 employees on five continents. With over 7,500 people in the UK, operating across defence, space, aerospace, and digital security, we help build a future we can all trust. Thales supports the security and stability of our nation by providing extraordinary technology to our customers, as well as delivering social value to the UK with our products and services.

Computer Systems Architect

Crawley – Hybrid

Thales Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) UK is a principal supplier of UAS, Electronic Warfare and Radar equipment to the UK armed forces, as well as an exporter of these capabilities worldwide.

ISR is a highly complex product development environment, focusing on delivering cutting edge products including:

• Digital Radar Electronic Support Measures (RESM) that provides situational awareness and identification of threats even in busy electronic transmission environments
• Radar Electronic Countermeasures (RECM) that can protect assets by denying tactical advantage and distracting incoming threats.

We’re growing and are looking for an experienced Computer Systems Architect to join us.

This role will provide specialist computer systems support to the wider team, including close collaboration with the RESM Processor Architect / Subject Matter Expert.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and recommend candidate architectures for the computing system to satisfy stakeholder expectations according to the standards and re-use policies, the product roadmap and the business strategy
• Establish the computer system architecture by making trade-offs between stakeholder expectations, technical solutions and costs, risks and schedule, document the associated artefacts (architecture justification in the design and justification file, product breakdown structure, system/segment design document) and generate the lower-level specifications (internal or external)
• Collaborate with RESM Processor Architect / Subject Matter Expert
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure optimal design, ensuring integration across multiple projects, working closely with systems, hardware and software engineers
• Throughout the project life cycle, contribute to:• assignment of requirements
• testing including performance evaluation
• management of critical parameters
• definition of interfaces
• technical negotiation between different stakeholders (internal or external).

• Provide support through the entire lifecycle from bid concept to manufacture and operation in-service
• Knowledge of and adherence to:• Industry standards
• regulatory, compliance, safety and cybersecurity requirements

• Specification, set up and maintenance of reference system development / test rigs

Skills, experience and knowledge required of the successful candidate:

• Experience in architecting modern processor/high performance computer systems
• Experience with Single Board Computers, PCI Express backplanes, high speed data transfer systems (such as backplane FPGA to FPGA protocols) and fibre optic transceiver technology such as QSFP+, SF+ etc.
• Understanding of standard open architectures such as OpenVPX (VITA 65), SOSA etc
• Understanding of principles of Systems Engineering
• Having an eye for detail
• Good problem-solving skills
• Ability to present technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Ability to work confidently across multiple projects and priorities

Security Clearance statement  

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a sole British National from birth and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance- United Kingdom Security Vetting - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

Your Career At Thales UK

Future opportunities will allow you to discover other domains or sites. You will be able to evolve and grow your Competencies in different areas: 

• Room and attention to personal development 
• Build your talents in another domain of Thales Group, discovering new products, new customers, new country or go to a more complex Solution 
• Choose between a technical expertise or a leadership path 
• Build an international career within a leading Engineering Group 

What we can offer

We are committed to giving you opportunities to be your best. We believe in embracing the passion and potential of our people, and to achieve this we offer market leading training, development and experiences, along with the opportunity to be mentored and coached by some of the smartest minds in the industry. We hire from within as our first priority, so you’ll have a myriad of opportunities within our diverse, global organisation.

Our packages will include significant bonus, a strong pension contribute, private healthcare, development focused targets and relocation support can be provided if required along with a variety of learning, development and career enhancement opportunities. Further support can be provided towards academic and membership attainments.

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At Thales, we ensure equal opportunities, pay and working conditions for all. The benefits we offer include private medical insurance, buying or selling annual leave, cycle to work schemes, employee discounts, paid volunteering day, stocks and shares, annual bonus and much more depending on the role. Read more about our benefits here.

We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued for who they are and the unique strengths they bring. Discover more about our programmes, employee networks, wellbeing policies, and inclusive features here.

If this role isn’t quite right for you, we encourage you to join our talent community where your details will be shared with our recruitment teams for other potential opportunities. Join the Talent Community here.

Join Thales in the UK – Innovate with us and shape the future!