Optical Sensing Test Engineer

Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies.

You will sit at the centre of the Optics Cluster in our Test Department, with a scope that crosses cluster boundaries. A sensing subsystem is not only an optics problem. It sits where optics, electronics, embedded software, and mechanical integration meet.

You will therefore do more than execute tests. You will act as the sensing system architect for test, and you will:

• Turn sensing subsystem requirements into structured test cases and test equipment concepts.
• Specify and commission the optical, electrical, and mechanical ground support equipment (OGSE, EGSE, and MGSE) that each modality needs.
• Serve as the department's technical authority on sensor synchronisation, calibration, and multimodal data quality.

The day-to-day:

• Prototype testing: Characterise new sensors and integrated sensing subsystems during development. Turn requirements, such as performance at a given speed, temperature or altitude, into test plans. Design, build, and run the lab setups that show whether the sensor meets them.
• Integration support: Help decide how cameras and other sensors fit each new platform, including mounting angles, focus, field of view, and protective window.
• Production support: Define and run the acceptance test procedures that every production unit must pass before shipment.
• Supplier evaluation: Assess new sensor suppliers and components against technical requirements before we commit to procurement.
• In-service root cause analysis: Investigate sensing failures in products already flying, in the field or from reports. Reproduce the fault, fix it, and give structured findings to the design and manufacturing teams.

You should apply if you

Must have skills:

• Have hands-on experience testing optical cameras or imaging systems in a lab, in industry or in applied research.
• Have designed and built your own test setups, not only run existing procedures.
• Can turn specifications into test cases with clear pass or fail criteria.
• Troubleshoot hardware in a structured, practical way.
• Hold a degree in engineering, physics, or a related field, or have equivalent practical experience.
• Work professionally in English.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with radar or LiDAR sensors. This is a strong plus.
• Experience with thermal (LWIR) cameras.
• Familiarity with sensor fusion, synchronisation, or camera calibration.
• Programming skills, such as Python or MATLAB, for test automation and data analysis.
• Experience with environmental testing, including temperature and vibration.
• A background in aerospace, defence, or another regulated hardware field.
• German language skills.

Join Helsing and work with world-leading experts in their fields:

• Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns.
• The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital.
• Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure.
• In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities.
• We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it.

What we offer:

• Competitive salary and VSOP options.
• Relocation support: up to €2,500 and 4 weeks temporary accommodation.
• Learning: €500/£450 yearly allowance.
• Health & wellness: gym membership and mental health support (Nilo.health).
• Social: regular company events and monthly social allowances.
• Enhanced parental leave: 22 weeks fully paid for primary caregivers & 6 weeks for secondary caregivers.
• Family support: 5 days of paid family emergency leave, 100% remote work option during pregnancy and phased return to work.
• A hands-on onboarding program (affectionately labelled “Infraduction”), in which you will be building tooling and applications to be used across the company.