Technical Product Owner - Hardware Engineering Environments

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.

Thales is transforming how engineering tools and services are delivered to our teams. We are looking for a Technical Product Owner – Hardware Engineering Environments to help build the next generation of secure engineering environments across Thales UK.

You will play a central role in modernising the tools used by more than 500 hardware engineers. Working across secure network environments and cloud-based platforms where appropriate, you will help define, deliver and evolve the engineering applications that support our hardware design and development activities.

This is an opportunity to combine practical hardware engineering experience with product ownership, technical architecture and stakeholder leadership.

Location(s): Crawley or Reading or Cheadle or Bristol or Glasgow or any other Thales site in the UK

The opportunity

As Technical Product Owner, you will work within an agile development team and as part of the wider Technical Leadership team. You will represent the needs of engineering users, maximise the value delivered by the development and deployment team, and ensure that engineering environments remain fit for purpose.

You will act as the key interface between:

• Hardware engineering users.

• The Engineering Applications Leadership Team.

• Product Owners across Engineering and Information Services.

• Technical architects and delivery teams.

• Engineering Heads of Discipline.

• The Thales Global Services Hardware Tribe.

You will also act as the Technical Authority and Architect for your area, with key design decisions agreed through the Engineering Applications Portfolio Design Authority.

What you’ll be doing

• Represent the needs of engineering users and champion effective ways of working.

• Own and prioritise the product backlog for your team.

• Define requirements, acceptance criteria and feature priorities.

• Validate and approve completed features.

• Collect user feedback through reviews and continuous engagement.

• Lead the evolution, consolidation and migration of hardware engineering applications.

• Align UK engineering toolsets with Thales Group workbench roadmaps.

• Define and deliver modern engineering environment solutions across secure networks and cloud platforms where appropriate.

• Drive the retirement of legacy tools and reduction of technical debt.

• Plan the migration, retention or archiving of programme data.

• Make important technical and product decisions for your area.

• Ensure that engineering practices, processes, tooling, infrastructure and internal services work together effectively.

• Collaborate with Product Owners, Technical Leads, Portfolio Managers and Delivery Managers to deliver the wider engineering applications strategy.

What you’ll bring

We are interested in hearing from candidates at different stages of their careers. You may be an experienced Product Owner, Technical Lead, Applications Architect or hardware engineer ready to take the next step.

You should bring:

• Practical experience of working in a hardware engineering environment.

• A strong understanding of hardware engineering processes and best practice.

• Knowledge of one or more of the following disciplines:

  • Mechanical engineering.

  • Electronics.

  • Interconnect and cabling.

  • FPGA engineering.

• Experience defining, architecting, implementing or managing engineering development environments.

• The ability to understand user needs and translate them into effective technical solutions.

• Experience prioritising work, managing backlogs or coordinating delivery across technical teams.

• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.

Useful technical experience

Experience with any of the following tools or equivalent platforms would be advantageous:

• PLM/PDM: Windchill, Teamcenter or ENOVIA.

• MCAD: Creo Parametric, NX, CATIA or SolidWorks.

• ECAD: Cadence Allegro or Altium Designer.

• Interconnect and cabling: Siemens Capital.

• Simulation: Ansys, COMSOL, Abaqus or MATLAB.

• FPGA: AMD Vivado or Intel Quartus.

• Requirements management: Polarion or DOORS.

• Version control: Git.

• Agile and ALM: Jira, Bitbucket or Confluence.

You do not need experience with every tool listed. Relevant experience with equivalent engineering applications will be considered.

Qualifications

A bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electronic, Electrical or a related engineering discipline would be beneficial. Relevant professional experience may be considered in place of formal qualifications.

Benefits:

• Performance-related bonus

• Half day every Friday, usually finishing around 13:00

• 28 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with opportunity to buy up to 40 hours/year (pro rata)

• 24 hours volunteering paid for

• Private healthcare

• Pension scheme

• Life cover

• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program and access to mental wellbeing app

• Employee discount shopping schemes on major brands and retailers

• Gym membership discounts

Security Clearance Requirement:

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 UK National 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. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a non-ITAR country may be considered.

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.

Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance:

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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.

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