Product Design Lead

  • MBDA UK
  • Filton, Gloucestershire
  • Feb 27, 2026
Full time Engineering

Job Description

Are you looking for an opportunity to develop and diversify your skills while working on a flagship program?

Salary: Up to £57,000 depending on experience

Dynamic working: 4 days per week on-site due to workload classification

Security Clearance: British Citizen or a Dual UK national with British citizenship

Restrictions and/or limitations relating to nationality and/or rights to work may apply. As a minimum and after offer stage, all successful candidates will need to undergo HMG Basic Personnel Security Standard checks (BPSS), which are managed by the MBDA Personnel Security Team.

What we can offer you:
  • Company bonus: Up to £2,500 (based on company performance and will vary year to year)
  • Pension: maximum total (employer and employee) contribution of up to 14%
  • Overtime: opportunity for paid overtime
  • Flexi Leave: Up to 15 additional days
  • Flexible working: We welcome applicants who are looking for flexible working arrangements
  • Enhanced parental leave: offers up to 26 weeks for maternity, adoption and shared parental leave -enhancements are available for paternity leave, neonatal leave and fertility testing and treatments
  • Facilities: Fantastic site facilities including subsidised meals, free car parking and much more
  • Healthcare Cash Plan: The Healthcare Cash Plan benefit provides the option to claim cash back on everyday healthcare expenses such as optical, dental, health and wellbeing and more .
The opportunity:

A C2 system is the heart and brains of the weapon system: it has to understand the threats to the protected assets, and plan and then manage engagements of those threats, in a complex and changing situation. C2 systems are central to the user experience and are fundamental to delivering weapon system capability to the customer.

As the C2 Product Design Lead, following a product line approach you will take ownership of and lead the development of the hardware and software design across domestic and export programmes for the C2 product. Recent successes in the export market has yielded a number of new customers bringing significant functional development and integration challenges for the C2 product.

Working as the C2 Product Design Lead within MBDA provides the opportunity to interact with all areas of the company, to see the full product development life-cycle and deliver real capability to the customers to protect their home nation for the future.

What you will be doing:
  • Leading a small team delivering new equipment software designs
  • Supporting development of new hardware build standards
  • Engaging with wider project stakeholders within the Weapon System design process
  • Meeting project schedules by reporting accurate progress and predicting completion dates
  • Management of change management processes and point of embodiment of new designs
What we're looking for from you:
  • An appreciation of the software development lifecycle
  • Experience in developing software design definition baselines from requirements to products ready for testing
  • Ability to lead small teams to achieve planned outcomes
  • Ability to work effectively within cross functional teams
  • Ability to analyse requirements and functional interface definitions, to generate detailed functional design documentation to articulate design need
  • Excellent technical problem-solving skills in order to lead investigation and resolution of design issues
  • Passion for understanding a variety of challenging customer needs and the ability to generate designs for product solutions
  • Proficiency in DOORS, Rhapsody or similar engineering or configuration management tools
  • Degree level qualification (or equivalent experience) preferably in a STEM field
Our company: Peace is not a given, Freedom is not a given, Sovereignty is not a given

MBDA is a leading defence organisation. We are proud of the role we play in supporting the Armed Forces who protect our nations. We partner with governments to work together towards a common goal, defending our freedom.

We are proud of our employee-led networks, examples include: Gender Equality, Pride, Menopause Matters, Parents and Carers, Armed Forces, Ethnic Diversity, Neurodiversity, Disability and more

We recognise that everyone is unique, and we encourage you to speak to us should you require any advice, support or adjustments throughout our recruitment process.

Follow us on LinkedIn (MBDA), X Instagram (MBDA_UK) and Glassdoor or visit our MBDA Careers website for more information.