Environmental Engineer at Helsing in London, England, GB

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

You will own the environmental definition for our weapon systems, from the Manufacture-to-Target-Disposal-Sequence through to the evidence that supports certification. You will set system-level environmental requirements, decompose them to subsystem and equipment level, and use analysis to find and design out risks early. You will also shape how we prove compliance, developing qualification strategies that use new technologies and methods to cut cost and time, then securing agreement from the stakeholders who depend on them. Working with supply chain, production and test facilities, you will see campaigns delivered on time, on cost and on quality, and help build our environmental engineering capability as it grows.

The day-to-day

• Own the Manufacture-to-Target-Disposal-Sequence, specify weapon system environmental requirements and decompose them to subsystem and equipment level
• Conduct analysis to identify environmental risks early, supporting design-out through de-risking tests that surface problems before they reach qualification
• Develop qualification strategies that use new technologies and processes to reduce cost and timescales, and build agreement with the stakeholders who must ratify them
• Act as technical point of contact for internal and external test facilities, working with supply chain and production so that test hardware is captured in the build schedule and campaigns land on time, on cost and on quality
• Analyse test results, produce reports against the requirement set, and generate environmental evidence statements with clear traceability for certification

You should apply if you

• Have specified environmental requirements for complex systems and decomposed them to subsystem and equipment level
• Conduct environmental analysis that identifies risks early and shapes design decisions before qualification
• Have planned and overseen environmental test campaigns with internal or external facilities, from scope through to reporting
• Produce evidence and reports that stand up to certification scrutiny, with clear traceability to analysis and test data
• Work across engineering, supply chain and production teams to agree qualification approaches and keep schedules intact

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

• Have introduced novel proving or qualification methods that reduced cost or timescales against a conventional approach
• Have helped grow an engineering capability through lessons learned reviews, process refinement or recruitment

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 VSOP options
• 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
• A hands-on onboarding program (affectionately labelled “Infraduction”), in which you will be building tooling and applications to be used across the company. This is your opportunity to learn our tech stack, explore the company, and learn how we get things done - all whilst working with other engineering teams from day one

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.