Electrical Harness Engineer

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

As an Electrical Harness Engineer, you will own the full electrical harness design lifecycle across Helsing's drone platforms and their supporting ground systems from the airframe through to the catapult launcher and Ground Control Station. You will translate system interface requirements into manufacturable harness designs, govern routing decisions across mechanically and electromagnetically challenging environments, and own the data packages released to suppliers. Your work is the physical backbone connecting every subsystem on the platform, ensuring mission-critical reliability and performance across operations.

The day-to-day

• Design harnesses end-to-end across three platform domains airframe, catapult launch system, and Ground Control Station producing 2D schematics, 3D routed models, and 2D formboard manufacturing drawings complete with branch geometry, bundle diameters, breakout locations and all supplier call-outs
• Define routing architectures that account for domain-specific constraints: vibration and flex on the airframe, high-G shock and environmental exposure on the catapult, and density, thermal management and serviceability on the GCS
• Select wire types, shielding constructions and connector solutions appropriate to each environment making deliberate trade-offs between weight, EMC performance, temperature rating and manufacturability
• Apply EMC-aware design practices throughout: cable segregation, shield termination strategy, backshell bonding, and minimum separation between high-noise and sensitive circuits
• Build and validate prototypes hands-on in the lab verifying routing, connector mating, shield continuity and workmanship before any supplier release
• Own the supplier data package end-to-end: define it, check it for completeness and zero-ambiguity, release it, and hold suppliers accountable to the output
• Work closely with avionics, power electronics, RF/EMC and mechanical teams to align on interface requirements, resolve integration conflicts and ensure design-for-manufacture decisions early
• Manage harness data within the PLM system: creating, maintaining and releasing harness datasets, ensuring configuration control and traceability across all design revisions and platform variants

You should apply if you

• Have designed harnesses in both 2D and 3D environments and produced 2D formboard drawings that a supplier can build from without interpretation
• Are proficient in SOLIDWORKS Electrical and/or Siemens Capital, and have experience managing harness data within a PLM environment to maintain traceability across design, manufacturing and supplier outputs
• Have comprehensive connector and interconnect knowledge contacts, backshells, shield terminations, wire types and can specify the right solution for a given mechanical and electrical environment
• Understand EMC at the harness level, including how routing decisions, shield termination choices and cable segregation translate directly into platform-level emissions performance
• Have worked in aerospace or defence, with familiarity of standards such as AS50881, EN3197 or MIL-W-22759; strong automotive harness candidates from a structured engineering environment will also be considered
• Have owned supplier data release: you know what a complete package looks like, you verify it before it goes out, and you ensure successful outcomes

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

• Experience with additional harness tools such as Zuken E3.series or CATIA Electrical
• Familiarity with harness routing in carbon fibre composite airframes, where grounding continuity and shielding behaviour differ from metallic structures
• Exposure to high-G shock environments such as pneumatic or catapult launch systems
• Experience with configuration management and change control in a regulated hardware development programme

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.

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