Instrumentation Systems Engineer

Department of Physics, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford

Grade 7: £32,236 - £39,609 with a discretionary range to £43,267 p.a.

Applications are invited for an Instrumentation Systems Engineer to complement an active group working on visible and near-infrared astronomical instrumentation. The postholder will work on the HARMONI project, focusing on development of the overall instrument assembly and alignment plan, and supporting the project’s document management and requirements management tools.

She/He will also have the opportunity to become involved in other instrumentation projects in the Oxford Astrophysics sub-department.

The post is available initially for a fixed-term duration of 2 years, with the possibility of extension subject to successful funding renewal.

HARMONI is the visible and near-infrared integral field spectrograph that is one of two first light instruments at the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT; www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/). When it comes on-line in 2025, E-ELT will be the largest optical telescope ever built; five times larger than current telescopes. HARMONI itself is a very large project, with a team of 60+ engineers and scientists in a consortium of seven institutions across Europe. The total project cost is ~90M€, and the project is currently in its final design phase. Oxford Astrophysics hosts part of the instrument’s core project team, with the principal investigator (Professor Niranjan Thatte), project scientist, instrument scientist, project administration, and lead systems engineer (Dr Fraser Clarke). The project has recently been successful in securing additional funding to implement a key new capability in the instrument. This increased workload demands more systems engineering oversight to make the project successful.

The successful candidate will work with the lead systems engineer to develop and refine the overall instrument level assembly, integration and verification approach for the instrument, with particular focus on AIV at the observatory. In addition to this, you will be responsible for enabling systems engineering ‘best practice’ in the document and requirements management systems.

The successful candidate should possess a relevant degree (MPhys or equivalent/higher in physics or engineering), or have equivalent (min 2 years) industry experience with high performance research instrumentation. A working knowledge of basic systems engineering processes is also expected.

Previous experience in the field of astronomical instrumentation and/or opto-mechanical alignment will be an advantage.

Please direct enquiries about the role to Dr Fraser Clarke ([email protected]).

You will be required to upload a covering letter, CV and details of two referees as part of your online application.

Only applications received before 12.00 noon on 10 June 2019 can be considered.

Please apply at this link: https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_details_form.jobspec?p_id=140531

Job ID: 140531