Senior R&D Project Engineer

Advanced Navigation

Advanced Navigation

Sydney, NSW, Australia

Posted on May 14, 2026

Advanced Navigation is the world’s most determined innovator in AI robotics and navigation technologies across land, air, sea and space applications. Founded on a culture of research and discovery, Advanced Navigation's mission is to be the catalyst of the autonomy revolution. Fields of expertise include artificial intelligence, underwater sonar, GNSS, radio frequency systems, inertial sensors, robotics, quantum sensors and photonics.

Today, Advanced Navigation is a supplier to some of the world's largest companies, including Airbus, Boeing, Google, Tesla, NASA, Apple, and General Motors. Discover it for yourself: https://youtu.be/F7uAqs1gtuk

Overview of Role

As a Senior R&D Project Engineer at Advanced Navigation, you are a "Technical Missionary" responsible for bridging the gap between high-level product discovery and the physical reality of manufacturing disruptive autonomous technologies. Operating within our cross-functional, product teams operating model, you manage the 'what' and 'when' of the development cycle to ensure every sprint delivers tangible progress. You ensure that our hardware designs are not only functional but can be built, integrated, and scaled reliably.

Roles & Responsibilities

  • Tactical Delivery: Act as the "internal client," validating that delivered features and hardware iterations meet specific acceptance criteria and user needs.
  • Systems Orchestration: Translate vision into technical roadmaps and manage dependencies between Hardware, Firmware, and Software.
  • Sprint Cycle Management: Lead bi-weekly sprint planning, estimation sessions, and retrospectives. Manage the product backlog and prioritization in collaboration with the Product Manager.
  • Planning & Risk: Drive the execution of multiple short and long-term project plans, and manage design mitigation strategies for technical and operational risks.
  • Leading Amongst Change: Comfortable defining success and leading in a rapidly evolving environment, constantly balancing time to market, risk and limited resources

Key Measurables

  • OKRs & Milestones: Projects delivered on time against agreed strategic milestones, with a strong focus on aggressive Time-to-Market.
  • Sprint Performance: Consistent team velocity and healthy backlog state
  • Quality & Yield: Successful hardware/firmware validation releases and manufacturing readiness. External certification execution to MIL-STD and CE.

Qualifications & Experience

  • Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Mechatronics, Electrical, or Mechanical preferred). Tertiary qualifications in Project Management or an APNT background are highly regarded.
  • 8+ years in a Project Manager or Project Engineer role within an Agile/Scrum environment, delivering complex engineering products. Experience working with multidisciplinary engineering teams (Mechanical, Embedded Firmware, Photonics, Production Engineering).
  • Expert knowledge of Jira/Confluence, MS Project (or similar), and Systems Engineering principles. Deep technical experience in complex, high-volume, manufacturing and engineering methodologies highly regarded
  • Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain complex hardware constraints to non-technical stakeholders.