Senior Hardware Technical Lead

Job description

One team. Global challenges. Infinite opportunities. At Viasat, we’re on a mission to deliver connections with the capacity to change the world. For more than 35 years, Viasat has helped shape how consumers, businesses, governments and militaries around the globe communicate. We’re looking for people who think big, act fearlessly, and create an inclusive environment that drives positive impact to join our team.

At Viasat UK our team provides industry leading, government approved Data at Rest encryption solutions to government and defence organisations, globally.  Our capability extends into multiple systems and platforms within a myriad of domains, providing versatile projects and exciting opportunities. As the technical authority for hardware development of secure digital design solutions at Viasat UK, you will drive engineering excellence, empowering the team through optimized processes, modern tools, and robust technical support.  You will provide quality governance across the Electronics, Mechanical, and FPGA disciplines, with your primary technical deep-dives focused on the electronic and mechanical domains. This role balances high-impact technical leadership with hands-on project delivery, splitting your time 80% on project execution and 20% on team mentorship and governance.

In this role, you will work alongside systems engineering and project managers to ensure teams hit their deadlines and meet all internal and external project milestones.

Governance & Technical Enablement

• Process & Tool Ownership: Define and improve the unified hardware development lifecycle and CAD/simulation toolsets.
• Targeted Oversight: Provide deep-dive architectural guidance focusing on electronic/mechanical integration and thermal management.
• Multi-Disciplinary Governance: Enforce quality standards and stage-gated peer reviews across PCB, Mechanical, and FPGA teams.
• Enabling: Support engineering schedules by proactively removing barriers to ensure technical progress.

Team Mentorship & Development

• Staff Mentorship: Lead, coach, and support career development across the hardware engineering team.
• Skill Cultivation: Identify training needs, skills gaps, and recruitment requirements to meet business goals.
• Collaborative Culture: Foster cross-discipline synergy between FPGA, mechanical, and board designers, and the wider engineering team.

Project Execution & Technical Delivery

• Detailed Architectural Design: Lead detailed electronic architecture design, schematic capture, high-speed digital board design, and PCB layout oversight.
• Verification & Test Strategy: Spearhead rigorous hardware design verification (DV) testing.
• New Product Introduction (NPI): Own the technical NPI hardware lifecycle, ensuring seamless handovers to manufacturing.
• Sustaining Engineering: Provide technical support to resolve complex manufacturing, test, and component obsolescence issues on existing lines.

From time to time, you may be asked to undertake other tasks to achieve project or business objectives.

• Experience: 10+ years of experience within the hardware engineering and electronic design domain.
• Education: Degree in Electronic Engineering or similar discipline.
• Technical Enablement: Experience defining processes and toolsets across PCB, FPGA, and Mechanical disciplines.
• Quality Frameworks: Ability to implement engineering governance and design review metrics across hardware ecosystems.
• Security: Must be a UK sole national and have or, be capable of obtaining, UK security clearance.

• FPGA Workflows: Familiarity with programmable logic integration and high-speed interfaces.
• Manufacturing Optimization: Knowledge of DFT and DFM methodologies.
• Defence Industry Expertise: Proven experience designing, developing, and delivering electronic products tailored for defence, high-assurance, or aerospace applications.
• Mentorship over Management: Proven track record of coaching engineers to improve output quality without administrative heavy-handedness.

Viasat is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, seeking to create a welcoming and diverse environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, genetics, age, or veteran status or any other applicable legally protected status or characteristic. If you would like to request an accommodation on the basis of disability for completing this on-line application, please click here.