Senior Cyber Digital Signal Processing and Embedded Engineer

Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 25th October 2026

At Dstl, our vision is to have a modern way of working efficiently, accommodating and enabling our people to create, collaborate and deliver. To do this successfully in this job will require attendance at a Dstl location, Government Departments including wider MoD or Delivery and Mission Partner premises for at least 80% of your working time.

Job summary

Join Dstl and help develop advanced cyber and electronic capabilities that support the UK's national security interests. As a Senior Cyber Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Embedded Engineer, you will work on complex and technically challenging projects, designing and delivering innovative signal processing, embedded software and FPGA-based solutions that have a real-world operational impact.

Why join us?

Working within multidisciplinary teams of engineers, scientists and technical specialists, you'll solve complex problems across software and hardware domains, influence technical direction, and help shape future capabilities. You'll have the opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies, contribute to mission-critical programmes, and collaborate with partners across government, industry and academia.

This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy tackling difficult technical challenges, combining deep technical expertise with practical problem-solving and systems thinking. Alongside delivering innovative solutions, you'll help develop technical capability across the organisation through mentoring, technical leadership and knowledge sharing.

You'll be supported to maintain and grow your professional expertise, explore emerging technologies and contribute to the continuous improvement of engineering practices, tools and ways of working.

This role is eligible for an additional specialist allowance of £2758 annually subject to meeting extended onboarding requirements. The role may be eligible for additional skills allowances depending on the skills and experience of the applicant.

Job description

What you'll do;

• Design, develop and deliver advanced DSP, embedded software and FPGA-based solutions to support complex cyber and defence challenges.
• Develop and implement high-performance algorithms and real-time signal processing capabilities that improve operational effectiveness and system performance.
• Shape technical architectures and make significant contributions to software and hardware design decisions.
• Work across multidisciplinary teams to solve complex engineering problems and deliver technical outcomes to cost, quality and schedule requirements.
• Translate customer and stakeholder requirements into practical, robust and scalable technical solutions.
• Produce high-quality technical documentation, provide authoritative technical advice and support technical reviews.
• Support integration, testing and debugging activities across software and hardware environments.
• Share knowledge, mentor colleagues and contribute to developing engineering capability within the wider team.
• Drive continual improvement by identifying opportunities to enhance tools, processes and engineering approaches.
• Maintain high standards of security, safety and professional engineering practice throughout your work.

Person specification

What we're looking for;

You should have experience in at least two of the following areas:

• Digital Signal Processing, including filtering, FFTs and real-time signal analysis.
• Embedded systems development using microcontrollers, RTOS or embedded Linux platforms.
• C/C++ software development for performance-critical applications.
• FPGA development using VHDL.
• Software-hardware integration, debugging and system optimisation.

You will also be able to demonstrate:

• Experience delivering DSP and embedded engineering solutions within a professional engineering, science or technology environment.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to work on complex and non-routine technical challenges.
• Experience engaging with customers and stakeholders to develop effective technical solutions.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• A relevant STEM degree, or equivalent qualifications and experience.

Please review the job description for more detailed information by clicking apply.

Important Information:

Our work in defence, security and intelligence requires our employees to be UK Nationals who are able to gain a high level of security clearance to undertake the projects we are involved in to protect us from security threats.

For this reason, only UK Nationals will be able to apply for this role. If you are an international or dual-national candidate, and you think you have the skills we need, please consider applying to any of our government, security or defence partners.

This role will require Develop Vetting and you should have resided in the UK for the past 10 years.