Principal Manufacturing Test Engineer

This role provides a valuable and technically challenging opportunity to work in a modern defence manufacturing environment, providing essential and decisive military capability to our UK customer and their allies.

Salary: Circa £52,000 depending on experience

Dynamic (hybrid) working: 4/5 days per week on‑site due to workload classification

Security Clearance: DV & British Citizen or Dual National

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.
• 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:

This opportunity is for a Principal Test Engineer to join the Manufacturing team supporting test and diagnostics of electrical/electronic sub‑systems and circuit cards during early phases of the product lifecycle. You will be providing technical support to the manufacturing test capability, to ensure programme targets are met to agreed time, cost and quality requirements.

• Providing Test Engineering support during Design / Development phases from initial concept through to Production Readiness Review and release to Operations.
• Supporting Test Facility introduction and ensuring that appropriate configuration control of equipment and facilities is in place prior to use, including generating supporting test specifications and operator instructions.
• Supporting testing of electrical/electronic sub‑assemblies and circuit cards, with diagnosis of production test failures down to component level.
• Working closely with Operations, the design teams and other stakeholders to overcome any technical challenges.
• Always aiming to deliver in line with all programme and quality requirements, whilst maintaining Test Engineering functional governance and pursuing continuous improvement.
• Work alongside Test Experts and design engineers to understand and implement the project test strategy and influence the design to include the appropriate testability solutions.
• Work alongside the Manufacturing management in compiling the initial process flows for new product.
• Create and maintain the test documentation for production test equipment.
• Support the Process FMEA, ensuring test mitigations are in place.
• Initialise test fixture designs for new product.
• Estimate the time taken to test new products
• Support the design engineers in carrying out the functional & Environmental testing of initial prototypes.

You will be working with a small team of dedicated engineers in a fast‑paced but friendly and inclusive manufacturing environment. The team has a great mix of people, ranging from apprentices and graduates through to experienced engineers, all striving to deliver technical excellence across a number of different missile systems in development and production.

What we're looking for from you:

• Minimum Qualification Level 4 or greater in Engineering (preferably Electrical, Electronic, Aerospace or Mechanical), Physics or Maths.
• Must be DV Clear or willing to obtain DV
• Must include modules for Electronic Principles (digital or analogue) or Electrical Principles.
• Several years' experience in related industry / manufacturing.

• A good understanding of electrical/electronic measurement and test principles and test equipment, as well as fault diagnosis techniques for electronic/electro‑mechanical sub‑assemblies.
• Experience of using both manual and automated test equipment, preferably in a defence organisation or similar manufacturing environment.
• Familiar with enterprise resource planning and manufacturing execution system programs (e.g. SAP, MES) for recording test activities and generating non-conformance reports and concessions.
• The ability to plan and organise own work in order to ensure multiple tasks can be prioritised and delivered against Project objectives.

• Good verbal and written communication skills, including generation of test specifications, operator instructions and technical reports based on higher-level requirements.
• Proven analytical and problem solving skills, with strong attention to detail.

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 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 (@MBDA_UK), Instagram (MBDA_UK) and Glassdoor or visit our MBDA Careers website for more information.

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