Senior Avionics Engineer – NL

Darwin have partnered with a fast-scaling defence technology company that designs and manufactures unmanned aircraft systems, deployed globally in support of defence, security, and critical infrastructure operations. As they grow, they’re building out a specialist function focused on system reliability, field performance, and rapid response – the team that steps in when something breaks in the field and needs to be understood, fixed, and proven fixed, fast.

You’d be the person the platform’s electrical integrity ultimately rests on. Not one slice of the puzzle, all of it – power architecture, schematics, PCBs, bring-up, integration, fault-chasing, flight validation, release. If a system trips a fault mid-flight or a board misbehaves on the bench, you’re the one who gets underneath it and doesn’t stop until you know why.

Why Join?

• A small, high-trust team where fixing something genuinely means something – your work runs on systems already out in the field, doing real jobs in demanding places.
• Real, unbroken ownership: you’re there from the first line on a schematic through to watching it fly and hold up under pressure.
• Fast-moving, well-funded growth – more scope, more autonomy, and a seat at the table as the function scales.
• Constant exposure to the sharpest end of autonomous aviation, embedded electronics, and RF – working alongside engineers who take the same pride in getting it right.
• A genuinely informal, close-knit culture built for people who’d rather solve the hard problem themselves than wait for someone else to.

The Role

You’ll own the electrical backbone of the platform end to end. Expect to:

• Architect power trees, load budgets, grounding schemes, and critical-load priorities from scratch.
• Build in real protection – against brownout, overvoltage, reverse polarity, inrush, shorts, and dropouts – not just design for the happy path.
• Take schematics through to multilayer PCB layout across power, avionics, sensor, timing, and mission-critical systems.
• Bring hardware to life: batteries, BMS, flight controllers, sensors, servos, radios, payloads, embedded compute, all talking to each other cleanly.
• Chase EMI/EMC and power-integrity issues to ground, using derating, fault containment, and fault-injection testing to make failure modes predictable, not surprising.
• Run root-cause investigations that actually close the loop – lab, environmental, vibration, thermal, HIL, and real flight validation.
• Keep the paper trail tight: schematics, BOMs, hardware revisions, test procedures, release docs, all clean enough that someone else could pick it up.

What you will bring

• A degree in Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Mechatronics, Avionics, or the practical experience to match.
• 5+ years working hands-on with embedded electronics, avionics, UAVs, robotics, aerospace, defence, or other systems where failure isn’t an option.
• A track record of taking hardware from a blank page – or a broken one in the field – through to a released, validated product.
• Real fluency in DC power systems, grounding, protection, and monitoring, not just textbook knowledge.
• Comfort in Altium or KiCad, and just as comfortable with a probe in hand doing bring-up and rework on the bench.
• Working knowledge of CAN, UART, Ethernet, SPI, I²C, and USB – you know how these systems actually talk to each other.
• A sharp eye for EMI/EMC, shielding, and signal or power integrity issues before they become field failures.
• Bonus points if you’ve worked with PX4/Pixhawk, DroneCAN/UAVCAN, GNSS/PNT, SATCOM, or tactical comms.

Location & Package

Based in the Netherlands, with a strong benefits package including pension, generous holiday allowance, and a genuinely close-knit, informal company culture. Salary commensurate with experience – reach out to discuss.

Reach out to Kyle Gauntlett, Executive Recruiter – Defense at Darwin Recruitment if you’re open to hearing more.

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

Kyle Gauntlett