Forward Deployed Engineering Manager
On-siteSydney, New South Wales, Australia
Job Summary
Lead global engineers in embedding directly with customers on vehicles, vessels, and ranges to design, integrate, validate, and ship navigation solutions into complex defence and commercial platforms. Define deployment playbooks covering pre-sale qualification, on-site integration sprints, and Tier 1–3 technical support workflows while acting as the senior escalation point for high-stakes customer implementations. Recruit and develop technical talent with deep fluency in inertial navigation, GNSS, and sensor fusion, then partner with regional leaders to forecast growth and manage cross-region surge support. Translate field-derived insights into structured product requirements and champion product-customer fit through demonstrations, trials, and benchmarking campaigns. Operate in a matrix environment to earn influence through demonstrably useful standards and tooling that drive win rates and time-to-integration. This full-time, permanent role is based in Sydney, Australia, with 30–40% travel to austere test environments.
Required Qualifications
- Degree in mechatronics, mechanical, electrical or aerospace engineering (or equivalent depth demonstrated in the field)
- 8+ years across applications engineering, solutions engineering, presales or field engineering in navigation, robotics, autonomous systems or adjacent deep-tech
- Demonstrated record of winning complex technical pursuits
- Hands-on fluency with inertial navigation, GNSS/GNSS-denied operation, sensor fusion, and platform integration (serial/CAN/Ethernet interfaces, timing, mounting and calibration realities)
- Experience leading and scaling distributed technical teams, or clear readiness to step from senior IC/team-lead into functional leadership
- Willingness to travel globally, including to austere test and trial environments
- Full-time, permanent role based in Sydney, Australia
- Regional and international travel of approximately 30–40% is expected, including to austere test and trial environments
Desired Qualifications
- Experience within a Five Eyes defence program environment (land, maritime or uncrewed systems)
- Familiarity with export controls as they affect field engineering work
- Second language and cross-cultural fluency for global account work
- Experience in defence very strongly preferred
- aerospace or maritime domain experience is possible
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