System Design & Engineering Manager
Pisa, Italy
€70,000 – €80,000 Base Salary + Performance Bonus
Take ownership of a multidisciplinary engineering function spanning System Engineering, Electronic Engineering and Mechanical Engineering within an international R&D environment.
This System Design & Engineering Manager position offers broad technical and people leadership responsibility across the complete development lifecycle of complex electronic and electromechanical products and systems.
Reporting directly to the Director of R&D, you’ll lead and coordinate the System Design and Design Engineering functions, including System Engineers and an established Design Engineering Manager. You will be responsible for setting technical priorities, allocating resources and ensuring consistency across multidisciplinary engineering programmes.
The role covers product development from initial concept and system architecture through detailed hardware design, prototyping, integration, verification, validation, manufacturing release, early field installations and ongoing lifecycle management. You’ll work closely with Software, Product Management, Operations, suppliers and external engineering partners to ensure customer and business requirements are translated into robust technical solutions.
Hardware & System Engineering Manager Benefits:
- €70,000 – €80,000 base salary
- Performance-related bonus
- Senior R&D leadership responsibility
- Direct reporting line to the Director of R&D
- Leadership across System, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering
- Opportunity to work with advanced radar, sensing and measurement technologies
The System Design & Engineering Manager Role:
- Lead, coach and develop the System Design and Design Engineering functions across System Engineering, Electronic Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.
- Translate the product roadmap into actionable engineering objectives, priorities and development plans.
- Manage engineering resources, workloads, technical dependencies and priorities across multiple development programmes.
- Ensure effective capture, analysis, management and traceability of customer, user and business requirements.
- Lead the definition of system architecture and requirements across electronic hardware, mechanical, firmware and software domains.
- Oversee system and subsystem specifications, interface definitions, technical documentation and engineering change-management processes.
- Drive technical decision-making and trade-off analysis across performance, cost, reliability, manufacturability, maintainability and technical risk.
- Promote engineering best practice through modelling, simulation, prototyping and structured technical design reviews.
- Maintain technical oversight from initial concept and architecture through detailed design, prototyping, system integration, verification, validation and industrialisation.
- Lead system integration, verification and validation activities, including test plans, acceptance criteria, prototype evaluations, measurement campaigns, test automation and non-conformity management.
- Oversee electronic and mechanical design activities to ensure technical, quality, schedule and cost requirements are achieved.
- Coordinate integration across electronic, mechanical, firmware and software disciplines.
- Monitor project execution, engineering capacity, milestones, budgets, technical risks and quality targets.
- Work closely with Software Development, Product Management, Operations, suppliers, consultants and external engineering partners.
- Set objectives, manage performance, develop engineering capability and support succession planning and recruitment.
- Ensure engineering activities comply with company processes, relevant regulations, technical standards, quality requirements and safety practices.
System Design & Engineering Manager Requirements:
- Significant experience developing complex electronic, electromechanical or multidisciplinary engineered products and systems.
- Proven Engineering Manager, R&D Manager, Functional Leader, Head of Engineering or similar multidisciplinary technical leadership experience.
- Strong people-management experience, including resource planning, objective setting, performance management, coaching and employee development.
- Experience leading senior engineers, technical specialists and/or Engineering Team Leaders.
- Strong understanding of Systems Engineering principles, including requirements analysis, requirements traceability, system architecture and interface management.
- Experience with system integration, verification and validation.
- Broad technical understanding of electronic and mechanical engineering principles.
- Full product-development lifecycle experience covering concept, system architecture, detailed design, prototyping, testing, industrialisation, production release and lifecycle management.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving and technical decision-making capability.
- Ability to balance engineering performance against programme timelines, product quality, cost and available resources.
- Strong stakeholder-management skills and the ability to work effectively across multidisciplinary and international teams.
- Master’s degree in a relevant engineering discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
- Fluent Italian and a good level of written and spoken English.
Experience with radar systems, RF electronics, signal processing, modelling, simulation or complex measurement systems would be advantageous but is not essential.
Exposure to laboratory equipment, Siemens NX, Teamcenter or requirements-management tools would also be beneficial.
The System Design & Engineering Manager will be based primarily in Pisa, working within an R&D environment involving hardware development, prototyping, integration, laboratory testing and product validation.
Occasional domestic and international travel may be required to company locations, suppliers, partners, test sites and customer installations.