Safety Engineer

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting 

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role Background

As a capability provider, the NCI Agency is obliged to deliver systems that meet the legal safety requirements of the Nations by ensuring that they are procured, designed, implemented, and maintained to be tolerably safe to operate. This obligation covers the entire system’s life cycle and scope and requires continuous effort to reach and maintain the accepted safety targets.

Nations tasked NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) Air Command and Control (AirC2) Centre to perform a safety assessment of MASE, ASIM, ALF-SFP, ALF-L1, NISP, CSI, L16@29K and ACCS. These decisions are recorded in the Programme Of Work and Memorandum of Working Arrangements.

To show full safety compliance against the applicable safety standard (i.e. IEC 61508 version 2.0, DS 00-55 issue 2 dated 1st August 1997, MIL-882 Rev E) the safety assessments shall be reviewed by a certification body. In the absence of a NATO Certification Body, an Independent Safety Auditor is required to perform the review and counter sign.

A Safety Engineer from AirC2 Centre/Business Assurance (BA) Functional Group (FG)/Quality and Safety Assessment (QSA) Team cannot perform this work as the full independency criteria would not be satisfied. An AirC2 Centre QSA Safety Engineer can only hold the role of either an author or peer reviewer.

For some nations, having the AirC2 system in full compliance with a relevant safety standard and shown to achieve its defined safety targets, is a mandatory criterion to allow live operations to be shown to support an overall SIL1 claim e.g. deployment of DARS to DEU for RADU23, NOR requirement for MASE.

Therefore, it is critical to have an Independent Safety Auditor review and counter sign the software safety assessment to fully comply with the clauses of the relevant safety standard for the identified safety objectives and to perform the safety audits against the processes defined in the Quality and Safety Management Systems.

Introduction

To strengthen the Alliance through connecting its forces, the NCI Agency delivers secure, coherent, cost effective and interoperable communications and information systems in support of consultation, command & control and enabling intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, for NATO, where and when required. It includes IT support to the Alliances’ business processes (to include provision of IT shared services) to the NATO HQ, the Command Structure and NATO Agencies.

The AirC2 Centre, as part of the NCIA, delivers planning, development, procurement, implementation and In-Service Support of NATO authorised AirC2 capabilities across the Alliance and bilaterally in the European Nations of the Alliance, satisfying the operational requirements, assuring the coherence, integrity and interoperability of the involved NATO and national systems and sub-systems.

In doing so, the AirC2 Centre contributes to NATO's Integrated Air and Missile Defence operations and continuously evolves NATO authorised systems and services to empower seamless, resilient and adaptable NATO operations in a multi domain environment.

The BA FG ensures that the AirC2 Centre delivers high-quality products and services to its customers and stakeholders. The BA FG is responsible for the direction, management and execution of the activities related to the Integration, Verification, Operational Validation and Acceptance of the Systems and capabilities delivered by the AirC2 centre. In addition the Functional Group defines, establishes and maintains a mission assurance framework, in line with the NCI Agency's policy and directives, in order to provide quality and safety assurance.

The QSA Team performs quality and safety assurance services for products and services managed by AirC2 and BMD. In conjunction with the Chief Quality Office (CQO), QSA Team also establishes and improves the ISO 9001 Quality Management System (QMS), and is solely responsible for the Safety Management System (SMS) utilized by Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD).

Finally, QSA Team leads the quality culture in AirC2 and BMD, maintains coherence with other areas of the Agency, and, supports internal and external audits.

In the light of these activities, AirC2 Centre is looking for a person to perform an independent safety audit and counter-sign all the Safety Assessments produced for the AirC2 developed baselines, by:

• Confirming the specified safety objectives (targets and requirements) are appropriate for the project/product and compliant with established, policies and processes (e.g. EUROCONTROL SAM, MIL-882, IEC 61508, DS 00-55).
• Validating that project safety objectives are unambiguously defined, testable and adequately covered in the engineering, verification & validation and test activities of a project.
• Reviewing the Software Safety Assessment / Safety Case produced by the AirC2 Safety Engineer to verify and validate compliance with the defined safety related plans, requirements, standards, and legal regulations.
• Recording the result of review and providing recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager.
• Independently audit the AirC2 Centre processes against the IEC 61508 and DS 00-55 and produce an audit report.
• Maintain a high-level of competence in System Safety Engineering and Human Factors and related best practices.

Role Duties and Responsibilities

Software Safety Assessment/Safety Case

• Confirming the specified safety objectives (targets and requirements) are appropriate for the project/product and compliant with established, policies and processes i.e. IEC 61508, MIL-STD 882, Integrated Air Missile Defence (IAMD) Quality Management System (QMS).
• Validating that project safety objectives are unambiguously defined, testable and adequately covered in the engineering, verification & validation and test activities of a project.
• Reviewing the Software/System Safety Assessment, the Software/System Safety Assessment Annexes (e.g. Proven-In-Use report, Fault Tree Analysis) produced by the AirC2 Safety Engineer to verify and validate compliance with the defined safety related plans, requirements, standards, and legal regulations.
• Recording in the form of comments the result of review and providing recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager.
• Deliverable - Record the result of documents review and provide recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager

Functional Failure Analysis

• Reviewing the Functional Failure Analysis (FFA) produced by the AirC2 Safety Engineer to verify and validate compliance with the defined safety related plans, requirements, standards, and legal regulations. In addition, to ensure that the FFA is complete and correct and that the safety test recommendations commensurate the hazardous failure modes.
• Recording in the form of comments the result of review and providing recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager
• Deliverable - Record the result of FFA review in the document itself and in SharePoint commit and provide recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager.

Tool Qualification Report

• Reviewing the Tool Qualification Report (TQR) produced by the AirC2 Safety Engineer to verify and validate compliance of COTS/Tools with the defined safety related plans, requirements, standards, and legal regulations.
• Recording in the form of comments the result of review and providing recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager
• Deliverable - Record the result of TQR review in the document itself and in SharePoint commit and provide recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager.

Requirements and Design Description (RDD)

• Confirming the specified safety objectives (targets and requirements) are appropriate for the project/product and compliant with established, policies and processes i.e. MIL-882, IEC 61508, Integrated Air Missile Defence (IAMD) Quality Management System (QMS).
• Validating that project safety objectives are unambiguously defined, testable and adequately covered in the engineering, verification & validation and test activities of a project.
• Reviewing the RDD produced for Lifecycle Engineering Change Proposal (L-ECP) with Medium and High Implementation Safety Classification and any safety relevant RDD Annexes produced by the AirC2 Safety Engineer to verify and validate compliance with the defined safety related plans, requirements, standards, and legal regulations.
• Recording in the form of comments the result of review and providing recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager
• Deliverable - Record the result of documents review and provide recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager.

Audits and Process Reviews

• Independently audit the AirC2 processes against the IEC 61508 and DS 00-55 and produce an audit report.
• Independently review the updates to the AirC2 safety management processes against the IEC 61508 and DS 00-55 and produce an audit report.
• Recording in the form of comments the result of review and providing recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager
• Deliverable - Record the result of documents review and provide recommendations for corrective, preventive and improvement measures to the Safety Engineer and to the Project Manager.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Recent practical experience of contributing, developing or maintaining safety analyses in the field of system and/or software safety, preferably within large-scale distributed software intensive systems.
• Practical experience in the field of system architecture, design or software development or maintenance preferably on safety critical system or software.
• Knowledge of Safety Engineering Theory (e.g. IEC61508 , Mil-Std 882, UK Def Std 00-55, UK Def Std 00-56, ESARR, EUROCONTROL SAM, ED-153, DO-178, etc.), and of NATO policies and standards for Quality i.e. ISO 9001 or CMMI.
• Experience and knowledge in the field of occupational hazards related to equipment installation and hazards associated with operating and support tasks;
• Knowledge of Air Operations;
• Knowledge of risk management principles;
• Knowledge of testing principles;
• Professional certifications in the area of:
  • Functional Safety;
  • Health & Safety;
  • System/Software Development;
  • Lead Auditor Qualifications

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Mathematical / statistical analysis methods and techniques, reinforced by theoretical knowledge;
• Training or professional certifications in the area of:
  • Testing;
  • Knowledge of AirC2 Systems
• Prior experience of working in an international environment comprising both military and civilian elements.
• Knowledge of NATO responsibilities and organization, including ACO and ACT

Education

• A Master’s degree at a nationally recognized/certified university in a related discipline and 5 years’ post related experience; Or a Bachelor’s degree at a nationally recognized/certified university in a related discipline and 8 years’ post related experience

Language Proficiency

• Business English

Working Policy

• Remote

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance