Principal Systems Engineer (Defence)

TL;DR

Principal Systems Engineer (Defence): Providing senior technical leadership and governance across defence projects with an accent on system architectures, MBSE best practices, and regulatory compliance. Focus on leading the end-to-end systems engineering lifecycle, ensuring safety-critical standards, and managing technical risks for high-integrity platforms.

Location: Abu Dhabi, AE

Company

hirify.global is a leading defence conglomerate focused on advanced technology and sovereign capabilities.

What you will do

• Lead the end-to-end systems engineering lifecycle (ISO/IEC 15288) from concept through disposal.
• Govern functional, physical, and logical system architectures and approve requirements baselines.
• Chair major technical reviews, including SRR, PDR, CDR, and TRR, while managing configuration processes.
• Oversee verification, validation, and certification strategies for safety-critical platforms.
• Ensure compliance with global defence standards such as MIL-STD, DEF STAN, and STANAG.
• Act as the primary technical interface with customers, partners, and certification authorities.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering.
• 15+ years of experience in systems engineering within defence, aerospace, or similarly regulated industries.
• Expert knowledge of ISO/IEC 15288, INCOSE principles, and requirements management.
• Proven experience leading multi-disciplinary systems through the full lifecycle.
• Experience with airworthiness, weapons systems, or other high-integrity platforms.
• Exposure to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tools and practices.

Nice to have

• Chartered Engineer status.
• INCOSE CSEP or ESEP certification.