Job Description

You are the hands-on engineering presence in the UK. You stand up the UK lab, integrate Xtend systems for UK customers, execute customer-funded development locally, and resolve issues in the field. This is a builder-operator role spanning bench work, field work, software, and customer-facing engineering. The candidate who thrives here wants to build a lab from an empty room and put systems into operators' hands.

Core responsibilities

• Stand up and run the UK lab from a blank room - bench, tools, test rigs, secure storage, configuration control. Specify it, source it, build it.
• Integrate, configure, and test Xtend UAV and unmanned systems against UK customer requirements.
• Execute customer-funded development tasks and modifications in the UK, with international engineering teams as your peer-level backstop.
• Support delivery, demos, training, and field events - bringing genuine technical depth on the ground, not just briefings.
• Own first-line technical troubleshooting on UK-deployed systems. When the call comes in, you respond.
• Run the UK technical asset register, firmware and software baselines, and integration records.
• Feed UK field learnings back into the global engineering roadmap. You are engineering's eyes and hands on the customer side.

Requirements

• BEng / BSc or equivalent in electronics, mechatronics, aerospace, robotics, or related engineering discipline. Strong self-taught engineers will be considered.
• 3-7 years hands-on engineering on UAVs, robotics, embedded systems, or comparable hardware-software products.
• Genuinely bench-capable: soldering, harnessing, debug, configuration, basic mechanical work. Comfortable with the kit, not only the documentation.
• Software literacy - Linux, scripting, basic networking, comms protocols. Able to work with engineering teams as a technical peer.
• Multi-disciplinary mindset. One day debugging hardware, the next running a customer demo, the week after specifying lab equipment.
• Fluent English; right to work in the UK.
• Strong advantage: UAV / counter-UAS / UGV experience, RF and comms familiarity, CAA / Article 16 awareness, ex-military technician background.

Environment and expectations

• Xtend UK is a fast-growing defence-tech company. Pace is high, structure is being built, and ownership is real.
• You will be expected to contribute beyond the formal scope of your role. Team members support each other to execute the mission successfully.
• Mission-first mentality. We are building capability that ends up in the hands of operators - that comes before process and hierarchy.
• This role is about experimentation, rapid iteration, and field problem-solving as much as it is about formal engineering process.
• Lab build-out and tooling decisions are yours to drive - this is engineering from a blank room outwards.
• Field troubleshooting and customer-facing technical support sit alongside bench and integration work. The role is multi-disciplinary by design.
• Execution speed matters. We operate with urgency, high ownership, and a strong bias toward action.