Product Integration Engineer, Defence

We’re looking for a Product Integration Engineer to develop and prove out our products with military customers, starting with the Field Operator HUD (FOH): a head-mounted, always-on visual intelligence system built from Distance hardware, a HUD operating system and AI-assisted data processing that pulls sensor, feeds and command-and-control into the operator’s field of view. Your job is to make it work on a specific customer’s platform, in the field, not just on a bench, as part of our core R&D team. If you’re a hands‑on generalist who knows VR or XR and would rather be where the tech meets the user than stuck at a desk, this one’s for you.

WHY DISTANCE?

At Distance Technologies, the problem we’re solving is simple to state and hard to solve: the amount of data in the world is endless, but human capacity is not. We are building a fundamentally new perception layer between humans and machines, transforming transparent surfaces into interfaces unlike the world has ever seen. Think of the windscreen of a car, the visor of a helmet, or a sight device, each becoming a new front‑end for AI. The way we turn bits and atoms into expanded human perception is protected by over 50 granted international patent families. We build it for two demanding worlds: defence and automotive. And we build it from a single foundation fusing software, hardware and computational optics.

There are 60 of us today, with decades‑long experience building world’s best products, optics, and open‑source operating systems. We partner and build with globally leading companies like KIA, Supacat, and Galvion, and we were Google Ventures’ first investment in Finland.

THE ROLE

The FOH is already in field trials with military users. Your first project is getting it working with British Army equipment and defence primes, building the integration around what the customer actually needs. As our product line grows you’ll take on a widening set of customer integrations across our defence work, each one a different platform, stack and set of interfaces.

Your core responsibilities include:

• Owning customer integrations end to end. Make the FOH work inside a customer’s platform: adapt the software, wire it into their sensors, displays, video and connectivity, and get it demo- and trial-ready. Prototype fast in dedicated environments to prove value with a client before it hits the shared codebase.
• Being Distance in the field. Join demos, trials and exercises with defence clients, support on‑site deployments when needed, and bring back what you see and hear on real kit.
• Bridging the field and the core. Turn what customers need into concrete integration work with the R&D and commercial teams, spot what should become shared product capability, and feed it into the roadmap and, eventually, the shared codebase.

You won’t be a satellite. You’ll join the software standups and reviews and be a real part of R&D.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU

• Your work ships and gets used. What you integrate goes into real kit already in trials with military users, and what you learn from demos, trials and exercises with them feeds straight back into the product.
• You own the whole thread. From first prototype to working integration in the field, it’s yours, not passed between five teams.
• New display tech. Glasses‑free computational optics and a see‑through HUD, the kind of problem you won’t find at most XR jobs.
• A small team backed to move fast. Around 60 of us, Google Ventures’ first investment in Finland, and flat enough that your calls count.

OUR EXPECTATIONS

What we’re looking for:

• A builder, not a passenger: a hands‑on self‑starter who takes ownership, works things out when docs are missing, and would rather be with a customer or in the field than at a desk.
• At least a couple of years of software engineering experience with VR or XR, plus generalist instincts.
• Comfort across a mixed software stack. You’ve worked with some of C++, Unity and embedded, and you pick up the rest quickly.
• Some exposure to electrical integration or software‑to‑hardware interfaces. We’re not expecting deep hardware experience on top of strong software.
• You’re at home in prototype and integration work: incomplete docs, customer‑specific stacks, messy interfaces.
• Good with clients, and happy to be the person representing Distance at a demo or trial.
• Willing to travel within the UK when needed, and to Finland now and then.

It’s a bonus, though not required, if you’ve worked with HMDs, wearable displays or spatial computing, know C++ for integration and application development, can stand up a UI or application stack for quick situational‑awareness or demo prototypes, are comfortable with embedded or Linux at integration level, or have seen sensor, display and video interfaces at system level.

You’ll be based within commuting distance of the Bath office and in the office two to three days a week. Our working language is English.

We process your application data only for this recruitment and in line with applicable data privacy law.

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