Workplace Planning Lead

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

As the Workplace Planning Lead, you will ensure our physical footprint advances in lockstep with our company growth, creating environments that empower our teams to deliver more, faster. You will guide the evolution of our global office footprint, addressing space needs and translating business growth into effective workplace planning and execution. Working closely with Workplace Managers, Real Estate partners, and leadership, you will facilitate choices related to office expansions, relocations, and consolidations, ensuring our offices support scaling at pace. This position represents the first global planning layer within the Workplace team and will help shape how our workplace function scales in the coming years.

The day-to-day

• Guide space transitions at pace across existing office locations and develop seat and capacity planning models aligned with headcount growth

• Forecast workplace demand across locations, defining workplace standards and seating strategies

• Facilitate and implement swift data-informed choices to support operational scaling

• Apply LLMs and AI-enabled workflows within a corporate real estate and operational context

• Coordinate real estate planning choices, such as lease renewals, expansions, or consolidations, and partner with Real Estate teams to evaluate footprint changes and location strategy

• Provide workplace data and capacity insights to inform lease negotiations

• Plan workplace requirements for new offices, relocations, and office closures, alongside workplace design and layout planning

• Coordinate facility setup with Workplace Managers to ensure smooth office transitions

• Develop occupancy metrics and dashboards to track workplace capacity across offices, design simple planning models to support leadership choices, and identify opportunities to optimise workspace utilisation

You should apply if you

• Have a proven track record in workplace planning, workplace strategy, corporate real estate, or facilities planning

• Have successfully overseen office expansions, relocations, or workplace transformations

• Possess excellent systematic and planning skills, with the ability to translate business growth into workplace needs

• Have collaborated across multiple office locations or global organisations

• Demonstrate excellent stakeholder collaboration and communication skills

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

• Hold a background in interior architecture or experience with space planning tools such as AutoCAD

• Have background scaling operations in high-growth or technology companies

• Communicate fluently in the German language

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 stock options (ESOP)

• 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: regular 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 specific sites.

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.