Technical Lead Systems Engineering
Job description
Original text imported from Reed
Description
Technical Lead - Systems Engineering
Location: Farnborough, or other Leidos UK Offices with flexibility to work from home dependent on business demands
Salary: £61,500 - £78,800
Looking for an opportunity to make an impact?
About the Role
Leidos is seeking an experienced Technical Lead (Systems Engineering) to play a pivotal role on a critical national infrastructure Programme, one of Leidos UK’s flagship delivery programmes supporting a high-profile government customer.
The Technical Lead will provide hands-on technical leadership across complex, multi-supplier systems, applying systems engineering best practice to the design, integration, change and assurance of mission-critical IT services. Working closely with the Chief Engineer, Architects, Project Managers, Infrastructure, Networks and Software teams, the role ensures that solutions delivered by Leidos are technically sound, secure, and fit-for-purpose.
This is a leadership role that combines deep technical expertise, systems thinking, and stakeholder engagement, with accountability for guiding teams through change, risk and technical decision-making.
What will I be doing?
Technical Leadership
- Act as Technical Lead for systems engineering activities within assigned workstreams or projects.
- Provide authoritative technical direction across on-premise and cloud-hosted systems, ensuring coherence across infrastructure, networks, applications and services.
- Lead technical decision-making, trade-offs, and design assurance in line with programme and customer requirements.
Systems Engineering & Design
- Apply Systems Engineering principles across the full engineering lifecycle (V-Model), including requirements, design, integration, verification and transition to service.
- Own and assure key engineering artefacts, including impact assessments, high-level and low-level designs, and technical change documentation.
- Ensure designs are aligned with programme architecture, security constraints, and operational needs.
Change & Impact Assessment
- Lead the technical impact assessment of Requests for Change (RFCs) and new requirements.
- Clearly define technical scope, dependencies, risks and estimates for change delivery.
- Support Project Managers with technically robust inputs to planning, costing and scheduling.
Stakeholder & Customer Engagement
- Work directly with customer technical stakeholders to elicit, clarify and refine requirements.
- Act as a trusted technical authority, able to explain complex technical topics clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Collaborate effectively across Leidos engineering disciplines and third-party suppliers.
Governance, Quality & Assurance
- Ensure compliance with Leidos engineering standards, programme governance, and security policies.
- Identify technical risks early and define mitigation strategies.
- Support technical reviews, audits, and assurance activities as required.
Mentoring & Capability Development
- Provide technical mentoring and coaching to junior and mid-level engineers.
- Promote good engineering practice, reuse of patterns, and continuous improvement across the programme.
- Contribute to the development of common ways of working and engineering maturity within the programme.
What does Leidos need from me?
Essential
- Proven experience as a Technical Lead or Senior Systems Engineer on large-scale, complex IT programmes.
- Strong grounding in Systems Engineering concepts and lifecycle management.
- Broad technical understanding across:
- Infrastructure (compute, storage, virtualisation)
- Networks
- Applications and integrations
- Hybrid and/or cloud environments
- Experience leading technical design, integration and change in a controlled, high-assurance environment.
- Ability to assess technical risk, manage dependencies, and make sound engineering decisions.
- Excellent communication skills, with experience engaging customers and senior stakeholders.
Desirable
- Experience working on UK government, defence or critical national infrastructure programmes.
- Familiarity with IT service delivery environments and operational constraints.
- Knowledge of security-driven design and working within secure environments.
- Experience influencing technical strategy across multi-supplier ecosystems.
Personal Attributes
- Confident technical leader with strong systems thinking.
- Pragmatic, delivery-focused, and able to balance risk, cost and quality.
- Collaborative and comfortable working across organisational boundaries.
- Passionate about engineering excellence and developing others.
What We Offer
- Opportunity to work on one of Leidos UK’s most significant and visible programmes.
- Exposure to complex, mission-critical systems with real national impact.
- A collaborative engineering culture with clear technical career pathways.
- Competitive salary, benefits, and flexible working arrangements.
Location
- UK (Hybrid / Customer site as required)
Clearance Requirements:
- Must be eligible for UK Security Clearance (SC or higher; DV desirable)
What we do for you:
At Leidos we are PASSIONATE about customer success, UNITED as a team and INSPIRED to make a difference. We offer meaningful and engaging careers, a collaborative culture, and support for your career goals, all while nurturing a healthy work-life balance.
We provide an employment package that attracts, develops and retains only the best in talent. Our reward scheme includes:
• Contributory Pension Scheme
• Private Medical Insurance
• 33 days Annual Leave (including public and privilege holidays)
• Access to Flexible benefits (including life assurance, health schemes, gym memberships, annual buy and sell holidays and a cycle to work scheme)
• Flexi-Time Working
Commitment to Diversity:
We welcome applications from every part of the community and are committed to a truly diverse and inclusive culture. We foster a sense of belonging, welcoming all perspectives and contributions, and providing equal access to opportuniKey skills
AI-extracted from the job advert
Application advice
5 AI-generated recommendations to maximise your chances.
⭐ Open your CV Personal Statement with explicit mention of Systems Engineering leadership on critical national infrastructure or government programmes — the advert names this as the core context in the very first paragraph.
📊 Quantify your engineering artefacts: e.g. 'Authored 15 HLD/LLD documents across a £12M multi-supplier integration programme, reducing rework by 25%' — the advert specifically calls out HLDs, LLDs and impact assessments.
🔐 Add a dedicated 'Security & Governance' line to your skills section referencing security-constrained design and compliance with engineering standards, as the advert flags security policies and programme governance as explicit accountabilities.
🔄 Describe at least one project using V-Model lifecycle language (requirements → design → integration → verification → transition to service) — the advert cites V-Model by name as the expected methodology.
🤝 Include a concrete example of translating complex technical topics for non-technical stakeholders (e.g. customer briefings, steering committees) — the advert lists this as a distinct, named responsibility under Stakeholder & Customer Engagement.
Suggested CV bullets
3 bullets our AI drafted for this specific advert, mirroring its ATS keywords.
Add these 3 bullets under your most recent experience:
- •Led systems engineering workstream across a 6-supplier critical national infrastructure programme, authoring 18 HLD/LLD documents and reducing design-related rework by 30% over a 12-month delivery cycle.
- •Conducted technical impact assessments for 40+ Requests for Change on a government cloud-hosted IT service, providing scope, dependency and risk inputs that enabled Project Managers to maintain schedule adherence within 5% variance.
- •Applied V-Model lifecycle governance across requirements, integration and verification phases for a £9M on-premise to hybrid-cloud migration, achieving transition-to-service sign-off 3 weeks ahead of contractual milestone.
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Letter preview — tailored to Appcast Enterprise
Dear Hiring Manager,
Leidos' flagship critical national infrastructure programme is precisely the environment where my systems engineering expertise delivers most value — which is why the Technical Lead role in Farnborough immediately stood out. With hands-on experience applying V-Model lifecycle principles across multi-supplier, mission-critical IT programmes, and a track record of owning high-level and low-level design artefacts through to transition-to-service, I am confident I can provide the authoritative technical direction this role demands.
My background in systems engineering leadership includes leading RFC impact assessments, defining technical scope and risk mitigation strategies, and working directly with government customer stakeholders to elicit and refine requirements. I have collaborated across infrastructure, networks and software disciplines, ensuring design coherence on programmes where security constraints and programme governance are non-negotiable. I have also mentored junior engineers through complex integration challenges, building team capability alongside delivery.
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Interview questions
10 questions generated from this advert.
Technical
- ›Walk us through how you apply the V-Model lifecycle on a complex multi-supplier programme — where do you find the most common gaps between design and integration phases?
- ›How do you structure a technical impact assessment for a Request for Change on a mission-critical government IT service?
- ›Describe your approach to ensuring design coherence across on-premise infrastructure, cloud-hosted services, networks and applications on a single programme.
- ›What engineering artefacts do you consider non-negotiable when assuring a transition-to-service milestone, and why?
- ›How do you manage technical dependencies and risks when multiple third-party suppliers are delivering components of the same integrated system?
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you had to make a high-stakes technical decision under time pressure on a critical programme — what was your process and what was the outcome?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to explain a complex technical constraint to a non-technical customer stakeholder. How did you approach it and what was the result?
- ›Give an example of when you identified a significant technical risk early in a programme. What mitigation strategy did you define and how was it received?
- ›Tell me about a time you mentored a less experienced engineer through a difficult technical challenge. What did you do and what progress did they make?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to align multiple engineering disciplines and third-party suppliers around a single technical direction. What obstacles did you face and how did you resolve them?
STAR answer examples
Model answers using the Situation-Task-Action-Result framework. Adapt to your own experience.
Tell me about a time you had to make a high-stakes technical decision under time pressure on a critical programme — what was your process and what was the outcome?
Describe a situation where you had to explain a complex technical constraint to a non-technical customer stakeholder. How did you approach it and what was the result?