Senior Software Implementation Engineer - COP/C2 Systems

Job description

We are looking for an experienced  Senior Technical Lead / Solution Architect  with strong hands-on software engineering experience and deep knowledge of  COP/C2 (Common Operational Picture / Command & Control) systems .

The role will play a key part in the  design, architecture and development of new COP/C2 solutions from the ground up , supporting our engineering teams in building mission-critical platforms for defence, public safety, civil protection and other operational environments.

This is not primarily an implementation or project-management position. We are looking for a senior technical professional who understands how modern C2 systems are designed internally and can translate operational requirements into software architecture, system components, development work packages and production-ready solutions.

The successful candidate will work closely with our software engineering team, solution architects, infrastructure and cybersecurity specialists, project managers, external partners and client stakeholders.

Our existing development team has strong software engineering capabilities. The purpose of this role is to bring  deep COP/C2 domain expertise, technical leadership and architectural experience  into the team and help establish the foundations for our own C2 capabilities.

The ideal candidate will have previously contributed significantly to the design or development of  COP/C2, situational-awareness, mission-management or similar real-time operational platforms , and will be comfortable taking technical ownership of complex systems.

Key Responsibilities - Lead the  technical architecture and system design  of new COP/C2 platforms and related mission-critical applications. - Translate operational and customer requirements into: - system architecture; - technical specifications; - software components; - interface definitions; - data models; - implementation plans; - development work packages. - Define the architecture for systems handling  real-time and near-real-time operational information , including tracking, telemetry, events, alerts, sensor data and external operational feeds. - Design and guide the implementation of  operational data models , including concepts such as: - assets; - units; - tracks; - entities; - positions; - missions; - events; - alerts; - zones; - geofences; - operational status. - Design architectures for the ingestion, normalization, correlation and distribution of information coming from multiple external sources. - Define integration patterns for systems such as: - GPS / AVL platforms; - sensors; - UAVs / drones; - radar systems; - video systems; - IoT devices; - intelligence feeds; - external command systems; - third-party operational platforms. - Provide technical leadership and mentoring to software engineers working on COP/C2 projects. - Participate in architecture reviews, code reviews, technical design sessions and engineering decision-making. - Develop or supervise the development of  proofs of concept, reference implementations and critical technical components  where required. - Define integration approaches using APIs, messaging systems, middleware and event-driven architectures. - Support the design of  GIS and geospatial capabilities , including operational mapping, real-time object visualization, geofencing, spatial queries and tactical overlays. - Ensure systems are designed with appropriate levels of: - resilience; - redundancy; - scalability; - high availability; - fault tolerance; - disaster recovery; - operational continuity. - Work closely with cybersecurity teams to ensure appropriate implementation of: - authentication; - authorization; - role-based access control; - auditing; - secure communications; - system segmentation; - secure integration patterns. - Contribute to technical documentation, architecture documents, interface specifications, deployment guides and system acceptance documentation. - Support technical discussions with clients, operational users, system integrators and technology partners.

Requirements - Strong professional background in  software engineering and software architecture , with significant hands-on development experience. - Typically  7+ years of professional software engineering experience , including senior engineering, technical leadership or architecture responsibilities. - Demonstrated experience working with  COP/C2 systems, situational-awareness platforms, mission-management systems or comparable mission-critical operational software . - Previous involvement in the  design or development of a C2/COP platform or major C2 subsystem , rather than solely deployment or configuration of third-party products. - Strong understanding of the architecture of real-time operational systems. - Experience designing systems that ingest, normalize, process and distribute data such as: - tracks; - positions; - telemetry; - sensor feeds; - alerts; - tactical or operational entities. - Strong understanding of  distributed systems, microservices, REST APIs and event-driven architectures . - Experience with asynchronous messaging or event-streaming technologies such as  Kafka, RabbitMQ, MQTT, NATS or equivalent technologies . - Strong understanding of  relational and NoSQL databases , data modelling and data-intensive applications. - Good understanding of  GIS and geospatial technologies , including: - coordinate systems; - spatial databases; - vector and raster information; - digital maps; - map layers; - spatial queries; - geofencing; - location-based information. - Experience with relevant geospatial technologies such as  PostGIS, GeoServer, Cesium, OpenLayers, Mapbox, ArcGIS or equivalent platforms  is highly valuable. - Strong understanding of security-by-design principles, including: - authentication; - authorization; - RBAC; - audit logging; - encryption; - secure system integration. - Experience designing or operating  high-availability and resilient systems , including redundancy, failover, backup, disaster recovery and degraded-mode operation. - Good knowledge of modern software-development practices, including: - Git; - automated testing; - CI/CD; - release management; - deployment; - observability; - production support. - Ability to take complex operational requirements and turn them into clear technical architecture and actionable engineering tasks. - Ability to technically lead experienced software engineers without becoming disconnected from hands-on engineering. - Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. - Strong communication skills and ability to interact effectively with both technical and operational stakeholders. - Very good command of  English , written and spoken. - University degree in  Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical/Electronic Engineering  or another relevant technical discipline.

Highly Desirable - Experience in  defence-grade C2/C4ISR systems . - Previous experience in defence, armed forces, public safety, law enforcement, civil protection or other security-sensitive environments. - Knowledge of  NATO interoperability concepts and standards . - Familiarity with technologies, concepts or standards such as: - STANAGs; - NATO data-exchange standards; - APP-6; - MIL-STD-2525; - NFFI; - tactical data exchange; - Cursor-on-Target; - military information systems. - Experience with  track management, track correlation, sensor fusion or multi-source data fusion . - Experience integrating: - UAVs; - autonomous systems; - radar; - EO/IR sensors; - AIS; - GPS / AVL; - video feeds; - IoT devices; - external intelligence sources. - Experience working with systems deployed in: - on-premise environments; - private clouds; - restricted networks; - disconnected environments; - air-gapped environments. - Experience with  Docker, Kubernetes and containerised deployment architectures . - Experience designing systems that must operate with  intermittent connectivity or degraded network conditions . - Understanding of defence or critical-infrastructure cybersecurity requirements. - Experience working on large-scale public-sector or defence programmes. - Existing or previous security clearance, where applicable. - Ability to obtain the security clearance required for specific project

What We Are Looking For

We are particularly interested in candidates who have followed a career path such as:

Senior Software Engineer → Lead Engineer → Technical Lead / Solution Architect

and who have retained strong hands-on technical capabilities.

The ideal candidate should be able to move comfortably between:

Operational Requirement → C2 Domain Model → System Architecture → Technical Design → Engineering Team → Working Software

This role is suited to someone who has not only worked around C2 systems, but who understands  how they are built internally  and can help lead the creation of a modern C2 capability from the ground up.