Technical Lead – USV Automation

Location: Den Hag, Netherlands
Salary: Competitive
Industry: Maritime / Autonomous Systems

Overview of the role:
We are working with a well-established organisation operating at the forefront of maritime technology. They are looking to hire a Technical Lead to drive the development of an Automation Platform for Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs), across sectors including autopilot systems, propulsion control, and PLC-based vessel automation. This is a full-time, permanent hybrid position combining technical leadership with people management, guiding a multidisciplinary engineering team to deliver robust, scalable, and reusable automation solutions across multiple USV classes.

Requirements

Essential:

• Degree in Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Automation Engineering, or a related field
• 5+ years of experience in industrial automation, embedded systems, or marine control systems
• Strong hands-on experience with PLC programming (CODESYS, e!COCKPIT, IEC 61131-3)
• Proven leadership experience in a technical or team lead capacity
• Familiarity with communication protocols including NMEA, CAN, Modbus, and MQTT
• Experience with agile development methodologies (Scrum, SAFe, or similar)
• Strong communication and coordination skills with a proactive, ownership-driven mindset

Required / Highly Preferred:

• Experience aligning technical decisions with product roadmaps, working alongside Product Owners and Project Managers
• Ability to lead sprint planning, code reviews, and technical decision-making processes
• Experience coordinating with geographically distributed teams
• Track record of ensuring compliance with safety, cybersecurity, and marine standards
• Hands-on experience during testing, commissioning, or system integration

Beneficial:

• Experience collaborating with external suppliers to source and integrate software components
• Familiarity with ensuring platform scalability and reusability across different vessel classes or hardware platforms
• Background in continuous improvement of development processes and system architecture

Darwin Recruitment is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.

Oliver Stewart