Product System Engineer
About this job
Optics11 is a fast-growing high-tech company based in Amsterdam, developing advanced fiber optic sensing systems for the most demanding environments. Our technology detects the earliest signs of failure in critical assets – from high-voltage energy infrastructure to subsea and defense applications – and gives our customers precise, real-time data they can act on. Within our Underwater Security business we develop sensing technologies that help detect and monitor underwater threats. Our solutions include OptiBarrier, designed for immediate, over-the-horizon threat detection, and OptiArray, our low-power optical thin-line towed array for unmanned underwater vehicles and submarines. The Role As a Product System Engineer at Optics11, you are responsible for defining and maintaining the technical integrity of a product throughout its lifecycle. Your primary objective is to translate the Product Roadmap into a coherent, feasible, and verifiable system architecture that enables successful product realization. You own the system definition, system architecture, allocated requirements, interfaces, system-level verification intent, and technical baselines of the product. Working across multiple engineering disciplines, you ensure subsystem solutions collectively realize the intended system capabilities while balancing technical performance, manufacturability, reliability, cost, and lifecycle considerations. You work closely with the Product Manager, Product Owner, Subsystem Development teams, Product Integration, Verification & Validation, and Lifecycle Engineering to ensure technical decisions support successful product development and future roadmap evolution. Responsibilities • Define and maintain the product system architecture, requirements, interfaces, and technical baselines throughout the product lifecycle. • Translate product capabilities and roadmap objectives into clear, complete, verifiable, and traceable system requirements. • Allocate requirements across subsystems and ensure subsystem solutions collectively deliver the intended system capabilities. • Define system-level verification strategy and criteria, and support integration, verification, qualification, and product release activities. • Lead system-level technical decisions and trade-offs across performance, reliability, manufacturability, cost, risk, and lifecycle considerations. • Identify and resolve cross-subsystem technical issues, dependencies, interface conflicts, and architectural risks. • Provide technical leadership across multidisciplinary engineering teams, driving alignment, systems thinking, and continuous improvement. Technical Ownership & Scope • Owns the system architecture, requirements, interfaces, technical baselines, and system-level verification approach. • Leads system-level technical trade-offs and assesses changes impacting system integrity. • Provides technical direction and alignment across subsystem teams. • Works within a clear scope alongside Product Management, Product Ownership, Engineering Management, subsystem teams, and V&V. What we offer • Join one of Europe’s fastest-growing deep-tech scale-ups. • Real impact: your work directly shapes our growth and success. • A great team in an international organisation with colleagues from more than twenty nationalities. • A competitive salary and benefits package. • 30 days of holiday per year. • Fresh team lunches five times a week, plus regular team activities and company events. Requirements • MSc or PhD in Systems Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Physics, Photonics, Computer Engineering, or a related engineering discipline. • Minimum 8 years of experience in multidisciplinary product development of complex technical systems. • Demonstrated experience defining system architectures, requirements, interfaces, and technical baselines. • Demonstrated experience leading technically complex engineering work and driving technical decisions within multidisciplinary product development teams. • Strong understanding of systems engineering principles, requirements engineering, interface management, technical risk management, and verification planning. • Experience with requirements management and systems engineering tools (e.g. Polarion, DOORS, Cameo, or equivalent). • Strong analytical and structured engineering problem-solving skills. • Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English. • Eligible to obtain EU/NATO security clearance. Preferred • Experience with optical sensing systems, underwater systems, defence, or other high-reliability products. • Experience with Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). • Experience with architecture trade studies and system modelling. • Familiarity with configuration management and technical baseline management. • Experience supporting product verification and qualification. Screening You will work with clients in the defense and security sectors. Obtaining a Certificate of No Objection issued by the AIVD, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service, is mandatory. This means you will need to undergo a security screening. We will explain the process and guide you through the applicable requirements.