(Senior) Systems Engineer Ground Segment

Job description

About Us

We are pioneering the future of satellite intelligence and defense. Backed by Rheinmetall’s proven defense expertise and ICEYE’s radar satellite innovation, our joint venture has the ambition of delivering one of the world's largest earth observation satellite constellations to defend Germany. Our mission? Empower Europe’s security and defense with sovereign, persistent, and accurate space-based intelligence under any condition.

Join us to shape one of Europe’s most significant high-tech projects and make a real impact on defense and security for tomorrow. The Mission of the (Senior) Systems Engineer Ground Segment Own and align the ground part of the end-to-end ISR system architecture across RISS and her industrial partners. As a Senior Systems Engineer, you act as the technical integrator and architectural authority wrt the constellation ground segment across organisational boundaries.

You translate ground segment mission needs into system-level architectures and requirements, manage interfaces between independently developed components, and ensure that partner solutions align with RISS system intent. You are the person who understands where partner assumptions collide, where integration risk hides, and where architectural clarity prevents costly downstream failure. You will operate at the intersection of engineering disciplines, suppliers, and program stakeholders, acting as the technical backbone that turns ambitious mission goals into deployable ground systems.

Outcomes

Define and maintain a ground system segment architecture that meets mission, performance, and regulatory requirements. Own and arbitrate trade-offs across latency, performance, cost, operability, and scalability. Drive, manage, and trace system-level requirements across subsystems and suppliers, ensuring alignment throughout the lifecycle. Identify and mitigate system-level risks early and drive informed technical trade-offs across cost, schedule, performance, and reliability.

Identify and mitigate integration issues between partners early through architectural decisions, interface control, and technical challenges. Support verification, validation, and acceptance activities to ensure the ground segment is fit for operational use under potentially adverse conditions. Ensure the end-to-end system is validated against real mission scenarios, not just component-level acceptance criteria.