Head of System Engineering (F126 Frigate Programme)

Location: Hengelo, Netherlands

Head of System Engineering (F126 Frigate Programme)

Lead Systems Engineering and Verification for a multibillion Euro programme protecting Europe’s maritime future — Thales Netherlands, Hengelo

Join Thales Netherlands to lead the Systems Engineering & Integration, Verification & Validation (IVV) discipline for the F126 Frigate Programme — a long-term, multi-billion-euro effort delivering next-generation frigates for the German Navy. This role is about people, capability, and engineering ways of working: you’ll lead ~150 engineers through ~7 team managers, owning the hierarchical and functional leadership of the discipline while partnering with programme delivery teams.

This is a high-impact leadership role for someone who combines deep systems engineering knowledge with a proven talent for growing people, improving engineering performance, and shaping resilient, maintainable platforms. If you want to make a tangible contribution to Europe’s defence capability and mentor the next generation of leaders, this is the chance to do so at scale.

What you’ll own — impact & purpose

• Lead and develop the Systems Engineering & IVV community across the F126 programme, setting the vision for technical excellence, engineering culture and sustainable lifecycle solutions.
• Own and drive the Systems Engineering Performance Plan: improve predictability, reduce technical waste, raise process maturity, and increase the customer value delivered by engineering teams.
• Be the people leader for team managers and technical leads: create coaching pathways, career development, and an inclusive environment where diverse talent thrives.
• Translate strategic goals into practical engineering practices: adopt and scale model-based systems engineering, lean engineering practices, robust IVV frameworks, and knowledge management.
• Represent the systems engineering discipline in cross-functional governance: align architecture, product lines, ship-system integrators and technical stakeholders to deliver coherent, testable solutions.
• Drive culture change: foster collaboration, psychological safety, and continuous improvement across legacy and next-generation systems.

Key responsibilities (practical)

• Define and steward long-term systems engineering strategy for F126, aligned to programme objectives and Thales’ technology roadmap.
• Lead capability building: define training, mentoring, and leadership development for team managers and engineers.
• Operationalise engineering excellence: standardise practices, reduce rework, raise IVV effectiveness and increase engineering predictability.
• Execute the multi-year performance programme: set metrics, run pilots, scale improvements, and demonstrate measurable gains.
• Enable MBSE adoption and architecture discipline to support system-of-systems thinking and long-term maintainability.
• Build and maintain a strong engineering community: cross-team knowledge sharing, engineering guilds, and lessons-learned loops.
• Collaborate with security, procurement, product lines and customer representatives to ensure compliant and integrated delivery.

Who you are — ideal profile

You combine technical authority in systems engineering with strong people leadership and change experience:

• Significant experience in systems engineering and IVV for large, complex engineering programmes (preferably naval, defence, aerospace or similar safety-critical sectors).
• Track record leading large engineering communities (100+ FTEs) and mentoring managers to grow inclusive teams.
• Strong systems thinking: architecture, requirements, integration, modelling, testing and lifecycle sustainment.
• Practical experience with, or leadership of, model-based systems engineering and modular platform approaches.
• Experienced change leader: able to design and scale performance improvements across multiple teams and stakeholders.
• Excellent communicator and collaborator in matrixed, multinational environments.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Systems Engineering, Engineering, Computer Science or related discipline.
• Fluency in English and Dutch; familiarity with German programme contexts is a plus.
• Willing and able to meet customer security clearance requirements (personal security clearance will be needed).

Why this role is compelling

• Meaningful mission: Contribute to safeguarding Europe’s maritime security on a next-generation frigate programme.
• Scale & influence: Shape systems engineering for a large programme with long-term strategic impact.
• People focus: Lead and enable a large engineering community — create career pathways, mentoring, and inclusive leadership.
• Professional growth: Opportunities to broaden technical, commercial and international experience across Thales global networks.
• Flexible & supportive environment: Hybrid working model (typically ~60/40), attractive leave (≈40 days), personalised benefits (bicycle plan, fitness, relocation support) and competitive compensation.

Commitment to inclusion

We actively welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds and life circumstances. We’re particularly keen to hear from leaders who prioritise coaching, psychological safety, and collaborative leadership — qualities proven to broaden participation and success in engineering leadership roles. If you bring strong technical judgment and a track record of empowering teams, we want to hear from you.

Security & eligibility

In line with Thales’ Baseline Security requirements and programme customer requirements, candidates must provide proof of identity, eligibility to work in the Netherlands, and employment/education history. This role requires a personal security clearance as part of programme eligibility. 

To ensure that we are a good match, an assessment is part of the selection process.

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