Chief Technologist

Location: Glasgow, United Kingdom

Thales people architect solutions that are relied upon to deliver operational advantage at every decisive moment throughout the mission. Defence and armed forces customers rely on us to deliver the full range of defensive systems for land, sea, and air. From early warning, to threat neutralisation, our platforms cover all levels from very short-range systems, to extended protection across the entire battle-space including Airspace Mobility Solutions, Vehicles and Tactical Systems and Missile Defence, Optronics, and Radar.

Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across five major industries; Aerospace, Defence, Ground Transportation, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Chief Technologist - Land Vehicle Systems

Thales is a world leader in the design and manufacture of products for the worldwide defence, aerospace and security markets. Land Vehicle Systems (specifically Optronics and Vetronics) is a key and growing product area for the Optronics and Missile Electronics (OME) business line of Thales UK.

A senior vacancy has arisen for the Chief Technologist - Land Vehicle Systems, reporting to the OME Technical Director and working closely with the Land Business Manager and Product Line Architects (PLA), to provide strategic leadership of our land vehicle systems engineering and technology.

The role will be of interest to professionals with expertise in land vehicle systems who already work at a strategic level in an organisation or have a vehicle systems background and the ambition to take on larger strategic responsibilities in that domain.

Key responsibilities:

- Thought leadership - influencing the thinking and direction of travel of the adoption and exploitation of technology for the land vehicle systems community (internal & external to Thales) in its implementation of emergent technologies/ standards (Time Sensitive Networking (TSN), Generic Vehicle Architecture (GVA), Video distribution, Artificial Intelligence (AI) etc.)
- Technology planning - creating and communicate the Technology Roadmap for the Land Vehicle Systems team identifying the key emerging or existing technologies and the plan for the adoption of these technologies within the Business Line.
- Operational needs - working with users (esp British Army) to solicit and understand the operational needs for land vehicle systems and link operational needs to the proposed technical solutions in the Technology Plan. An existing network of contacts would be advantageous here.
- External funding - identification and pursuit of sources of external technology funding (MoD, DSTL, DASA, Industry, Government) to support activities within the Land System domain.
- Leveraging Thales technology - working with the Thales Key Technology Domains (KTDs) and Specialist Engineering Teams (SETs), ensure that the technical challenges facing the Land Business Line are being addressed by the KTDs and SETs and that any resulting research/ analysis data is communicated to the PLA and Product Design Authorities (PDAs)
- Academic Links - ensure Thales Land Systems visibility within the University base and participate in recruitment / sponsorship / funding activities. Liaise with universities to influence research activities.
- International liaison: facilitating cross-Thales cooperation on technology insertion and acting as a key technical point of contact for analysis of intra-group international opportunities relating to land vehicle systems capabilities
- Supplier Collaboration - liaising and collaborating with suppliers and partners in the exploitation of new and emerging technologies to enhance the product range and to improve customer value.
- Competitor Analysis - monitoring the adoption of technology across the wider Land Vehicle Systems industry and ensuring that Thales technology innovation and adoption is ‘best in class’. Establish appropriate metrics to measure the success of technology adoption.
- Intellectual Property (IP) - ensuring appropriate IP protection is put in place for novel solutions.

Skills, qualifications and experience:

- Strong leadership, communication and organisational skills
- Land vehicle systems - demonstrated capability in current or previous roles.
- Knowledge of Vetronics and in particular the Generic Vehicle Architecture (GVA)
- Knowledge of key trends in land vehicle systems technology and the passion to steer the capability in