Overview In this role you own mechanical design for avionics and payload installations within a fast-paced aerospace and defence team. You'll take hardware from concept through qualification to production and collaborate across disciplines to deliver flight-ready solutions. The work spans mechanical, thermal and electrical interfaces, with rapid iteration from CAD to flying hardware. You'll influence design choices, support testing, and mentor junior engineers while contributing to mission-critical systems.
Compensation / Benefits- Competitive salary + discretionary annual bonus
- Pension contribution up to 10%
- 25 days holiday + Bank Holidays
- Private Medical Insurance and wellbeing support
- Flexible hybrid working from Bristol
- Opportunities for national and international travel
Responsibilities- Design avionics and payload installations, airframe components and mechanisms in SolidWorks
- Own models, drawings and design packs through the product lifecycle
- Create thermal management solutions for high-power electronics (heatsinks, ducting, fans, interface materials)
- Design installations with harness routing, access, grounding and serviceability
- Develop sealing and environmental protection for maritime and extreme climates
- Support qualification testing across vibration, shock, temperature, altitude, humidity and salt exposure
- Manage mechanical interfaces with electrical, systems and aerodynamics teams
- Collaborate with suppliers and manufacturing on machining, additive manufacturing and composites
- Support design reviews and produce analysis and test documentation
- Provide guidance and technical support to engineers earlier in their careers
Key requirements- Mechanical design experience in aerospace/defence or similarly demanding environments
- Experience taking hardware through environmental qualification and testing
- Experience with low-to-medium volume manufacturing (machining, additive manufacturing and/or composites)
- Ability to use structural or thermal FEA/CFD for initial analysis
- Strong SolidWorks and engineering drawing experience; GD&T knowledge is beneficial
- Interest in working across mechanical, thermal and electrical interfaces
- Practical engineering approach with ability to hand-calculate and sanity-check designs
- Confidence to make decisions and deliver under changing priorities and tight timescales
- cross-functional collaboration
- practical problem-solving
- proactive communication
- SolidWorks
- GD&T
- FEA/CFD (structural or thermal)
