Systems Design and Requirements Engineering
Airborne Optical Sensor Systems
January 2025 (Expected Start Date)
Burlington ON
**Please note that to be considered for any position at PV Labs, all candidates must be eligible to meet the requirements of the Canadian Controlled-Goods Program of the Defense Production Act, and be able to hold and maintain a Canadian Security Clearance. If you are not clear about your eligibility, please consult the Government of Canada website HERE
About the Role
PVLabs is seeking a seasoned Systems Design/Engineering expert to help us broaden and evolve our Systems Design and Requirements framework allowing you to apply everything you know about managing product requirements, systems design and how it could be done more efficiently. Its the kind of role where getting it right is a whole-team effort, and where your expertise matters.
Working with our small but mighty engineering team - you'll enjoy local decision-making and putting your own signature on our overall systems engineering capability.
For PVLabs, this requires deep experience in understanding, designing and articulating the operational capability of electromechanical / electro-optical systems and subsystems, and being able to adapt, communicate and apply fundamentals of systems development to specific customer applications and configurations.
This role is critical for ensuring that complex airborne optical systems meet the rigorous standards required for military, ISR, law enforcement & public safety/search & rescue applications, maintaining high-performance under challenging environmental conditions. The Systems Designer position will play a key role in advancing cutting-edge stabilization and payload technology and ensuring mission-critical reliability by, ultimately, effectively communicating status, challenges, and blockers to our leadership team, and collaborating with Project Engineering regarding tasking and priorities to our engineering labs with clear direction and oversight.
About the Responsibilities
Obviously, some typical Systems Engineering fundamentals will anchor the roles responsibilities, including:
- Develop Concept of Operations, system level requirements specification and interface documentation to support NPI and Customer builds
- Define system configuration and develop the hardware/equipment and data deliverable list.
- Collaborate with all our Engineering, Operations and Production Teams to create deliverables that meet contractual requirements.
- Manage multiple technical projects in a cross functional environment, with the ability to balance requirements of a variety of stakeholders, including internal and external parties.
- In collaboration with our Engineering Teams, help to develop new systems technologies, configurations and system applications to fulfill a wide variety of requirements from a diverse range of customers
- Become a subject matter expert to internal and external customers on the installation, integration and verification of PVLabs' array of modular gimbal products
- Provide program engineering support to our PMO for a variety of projects including bespoke Engineering R&D, international localization customers, full-payload systems for government contracts and cross collaboration with several national security and defense primes.
- Support to Bids & Proposals and Business Development activities, including analysis of customer applications to help define possible technical solutions, preparation of engineering estimates
- Act as a technical point of contact for PVLabs customers for both empty gimbal and full-payload customers, supporting specific programs from RFQ/Bid through to post delivery.
What were ultimately seeking is an objective thinker who can look at an opportunity or a problem from several perspectives and create solutions that makes sense for both now and the future. Someone who can understand the entirety of Systems Engineering and solve for issues as, or before they arise.
Desired Skills and Competencies:
- Hands-on electrical and mechanical aptitude (yes - that means getting your hands dirty sometimes)
- Post Secondary degree in Electrical, Electronics, Computer, Physics, or related Engineering discipline.
- 10 years or more demonstrated experience in the architecture, specification, implementation, simulation, test, verification, validation, and debugging of complex mechatronics and optical systems
- Demonstrable knowledge about the entire Systems Engineering life cycle process, principals and associated contractual obligations
- High level of competency with a Requirements Management platform (IBM DOORS, or equivalent)
- Strong understanding of MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-704 and RTCA DO-160 standards
- Strong leadership, planning, organizational, analytical, and decision-making skills. This means strong project and technical management skill plus the ability to manage and execute multiple (and sometimes competing) projects simultaneously
- Demonstrable, mature problem solving and decision making within a highly complex and interdependent environment.
- When developing and evaluating options for implementing appropriate solutions, considering the relative costs, benefits and risks is a critical skill that we highly value.
- The kind of interpersonal skills that make people want to work with you. Working well within the organization, and outside including customers, vendors, engineering labs and leadership is paramount to our success and the shared success of our Labs.
- Prior (meaning recent and relevant) experience as a Systems Designer/Engineer on at least five programs, with at least one program being a complex, custom order program with several international partners.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Familiarity with MBSE modelling an asset, as are programming skills in Matlab and Python
About You as a Requirements & Architecture Systems Designer
Our success is not only derived from the collective technical capabilities of our team, but more importantly HOW we work together. Heres what we value, and we seek those share the following:
- Creativity, Curiosity and Problem Solving, with healthy obsession for attention to detail and finding pragmatic solutions to complex problems
- Not afraid to seek out responsibility and opportunities to take the lead.
- A confident technical communicator who can articulate ideas and concepts, but who also knows that confidence in communication also means asking for help when you need it.
- A continuous-improvement approach/mindset to design, processes and practices
- You can drive the system engineer process rather than just being a passenger.
- Constructively provide and receive guidance and mentoring to/from other members of the Production and Engineering labs as were all in this together.
- Preference for working on smaller, nimble teams that can make local decisions and implement solutions quickly.
- The kind of professional maturity that enables you to manage your own time and priorities and finds motivation from multiple sources.
- If you play an instrument, even better. With several PVLabs people (including our CEO) guitars and keyboards - an in-house band isn't far off...
What's in It for You?
PV Labs is where your engineering career meets limitless innovation and unparalleled impact and you'll be immersed in an environment where groundbreaking technology meets exceptional talent. We take immense pride in our distinctive workplace culture - it fosters collaboration and ingenuity, creating an atmosphere of autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Our workplace culture is derived from our signature work-life philosophy weve fully embraced a 4-day, 8-hour per day work week, throughout the year supported by a hybrid working mode model that allows you to work from where it makes the most sense to. We focus on maximizing performance by measuring outputs instead of metrics on hours or location, and the idea that team performance achieved through individual performance.
As an integral member of our skilled engineering team, you'll be able to really channel your focus, passion, and expertise into an array of ground-breaking systems, products and projects. Your contributions will span the design, development, and maintenance of state-of-the-art electro-mechanical stabilization platforms, motion-control systems, camera and lens control systems, video-processing technologies, remote I/O subsystems, and the integration and control of cutting-edge laser technologies.
