Systems Engineering Specialist at SARAO - South African Radio Astronomy Observatory

Job Details
The National Research Foundation (NRF) supports and promotes research and human capital development through funding, the provision of National Research Facilities and science outreach platforms and programmes to the broader community in all fields of science and technology, including natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities.

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) spearheads South Africa’s activities in the Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope, commonly known as the SKA, in engineering, science and construction. SARAO is a National Facility managed by the National Research Foundation and incorporates radio astronomy instruments and programmes such as the MeerKAT telescope in the Karoo, the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) in Gauteng, the African Very Long Baseline Interferometry (AVN) programme in nine African countries as well as the associated human capital development and commercialisation endeavours.

• The main purpose of this role is to ensure the successful delivery of the SKA-MID Telescope and/or Dishes, Elements and products through leading the assembly, integration and verification of the SKA-MID systems and products while applying systems engineering leadership and recognised engineering competence and skills across multiple domains, teams and on multiple projects.

Key Responsibilities:

•  Leading and advising the technical team on the execution of the SKA-MID Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) / Dish AIV activities.
•  Performing Engineering & Contract Management to deliver the SKA-MID contacts on time and on brief through planning and managing the SKA-MID AIV / Dish AIV delivery in accordance with the contract.
•  Managing technical risks through identifying, categorising, monitoring and implementing mitigation actions.
•  Converting stakeholder needs and requirements into physical engineered systems that perform according to expectations through functional & physical architecting, analysis and synthesis.
•  Ensuring the delivered systems meet the stakeholder’s needs by maintaining traceability of requirements throughout the design evolution and managing baselines (DBL, QBL, OsBL) and the reviews thereof.
•  Integrating and delivering systems with verified performance and quality through preparing & overseeing the execution of verification activities according to verification plans (ATPs/QTPs, ATRs/QTRs) and setting to work of the SKA-MID dishes.
•  To ensure the delivered systems continue to operate and deliver the expected performance through root cause analysis and problem solving and managing the implementation of design modifications to eliminate failure modes.
•  To ensure continued improvement in knowledge growth, retention and management by ensuring that project SEMPs, QAPs, ILSPs, technical schedules, WBS & SOWs are implemented and maintained and continuous mentoring & coaching of SE resources.

Key Requirements:
Qualification:

•  B.Eng/B.Sc (Eng) (NQF 8) with 15+ years RELEVANT Experience; or
•  M.Eng (NQF 9) with 13+ years RELEVANT Experience; or
•  PhD/D.Eng (NQF 10) with 10+ years RELEVANT Experience.
•  Meets the requirements for registration with ECSA as PrEng

Experience:

•  Leading engineering teams, tasks and analysis while employing theoretical and practical knowledge gained on the job.
•  Proven experience in physical, hands-on integration, testing and evaluation of complicated systems which include RF, digital, electronic and mechanical elements combined with fixed infrastructure.
•  Leading the development and implementation of engineering processes.
•  Using advanced interpersonal skills in order to influence change in complex systems behaviour and operational environments.
•  Undertaking engineering activities throughout all lifecycle phases of systems under development, with particular focus on the concurrent engineering aspects and the design for supportability aspects.
•  Functioning simultaneously across multiple domains, teams and on multiple systems.
•  Coaching and mentoring in engineering, particularly systems engineering.

Knowledge:

•  Internationally recognised for advanced applied Systems Engineering.
•  Assembly, integration, test and verification of complex systems.
•  Baseline establishment and management.
•  Engineering change control.
•  Hi-tech product development.
•  Model-based Systems Engineering
•  Development of Systems Engineering processes and procedures.
•  Configuration management of systems under development, in production and in service.

Additional Notes:

•  Candidates with experience in engineering for radio astronomy or space applications are preferred.
•  Candidates who also have operational support / field engineering experience will have an advantage.