Job Description

Salary:

Technical Project Engineer

Airborne Optical Systems

Burlington ON

**Please note that to be considered for any position at PV Labs, all candidates must be eligible to meet the requirements of the Canadian Controlled-Goods Program of the Defense Production Act, and be able to hold and maintain a Canadian Security Clearance. If you are not clear about your eligibility, please consult the Government of Canada websiteHERE**

About the Role

At PVLabs, Project Engineers don't just manage schedulesthey turn technical ambition into delivered reality.

You will operate at the center of a highly multidisciplinary organization, aligning Engineering Labs (Electrical, Mechanical, Software, Gateware, Systems), Operations, Leadership, and Customers around a shared execution plan. Your primary job is not task trackingit is outcome ownership: clarifying priorities, managing risk, sequencing interdependencies, and driving decisions in complex, fast-moving environments.

This is a senior role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, brings technical credibility, and leads through influence rather than authority. You'll guide programs from early uncertainty through execution, balancing long-term system milestones with short-term tradeoffs in design, supply chain, and resourcing.

As PVLabs evolves from a custom-engineering model to a product-centric innovation company, you'll help shape how programs are planned, governed, and scaled across a growing portfolio of airborne ISR systems.

Your Center of Gravity: The PVLabs Engineering Council

You will work closely with the PVLabs Engineering Councila small but brilliant group of Staff and Principal Engineers spanning all engineering disciplines.

Rather than micromanaging tasks, you'll rely on this group as a force multiplier: translating program priorities into executable engineering work, surfacing technical risk early, and sequencing interdependent deliverables. Your success depends on strong relationships, shared context, and mutual trustcombining your program-level ownership with their deep technical leadership.

What You Will be Responsible For

Program Ownership & Execution

Own cost, schedule, risk, and performance across complex technical programs from kickoff through delivery
Develop and maintain integrated master schedules, technical baselines, and risk frameworks
Balance engineering ambition with production realities, supply chain constraints, and resourcing limits

Cross-Functional Leadership

Align Electrical, Mechanical, Software, Optics, and Gateware workstreams
Translate complex technical data into decision-ready insight for leadership and customers
Manage stakeholder communication with clarity, urgency, and judgment

Decision & Dependency Management

Sequence and deconflict interdependent deliverables across disciplines
Anticipate downstream impacts and resolve issues before they escalate
Drive tradeoff decisions grounded in realism and system-level thinking

Process & Scale Enablement

Help shape PVLabs ERP-integrated project management approach, including resource modeling, material planning, and NRE forecasting
Contribute to how we plan, track, and communicate work as the organization scales

What You're About:

We value how people work as much as what they deliver. You are someone who:

Sees both the big picture and the work-package detail
Leads through credibility, diplomacy, and clarity rather than authority
Is energized by complex, fast-moving technical environments
Brings order to ambiguity through structured thinking, asking the right questions and taking decisive action
Thinks systemically across electro-mechanical-optical products
Communicates confidently without egoand know when to ask questions
Is comfortable navigating tension, tradeoffs, and competing priorities
Has worked where documentation, plans, and products evolve together

Your Background

This role is intentionally not suited to generic project management backgrounds.

You've spent a meaningful portion of your career working inside complex, hardware-driven engineering environmentswhere systems are physical, failure is expensive, and integration risk is real. You understand that managing a program like this requires more than process fluency; it requires technical intuition, judgment under uncertainty, and credibility with engineers.

You likely bring:

810+ years in engineering execution, NPI project engineering, or technical program management within aerospace, defense, ISR, robotics, advanced mechatronics, precision optics, avionics, or similarly complex physical systems
Direct experience delivering multi-disciplinary products involving combinations of software, electronics, FPGA/gateware, precision mechanics, optics, and production ramp-up

Exposure to environments where:

Prototypes fly, move, or operate in real-world conditions
Design decisions are constrained by physics, certification, supply chain, and manufacturability
Rework is costly, schedules are unforgiving, and just iterate later is not an option

You are comfortable operating where:

Documentation, plans, and designs evolve together
Technical teams are small, highly specialized, and deeply opinionated
Program risk is driven as much by integration and sequencing as by task completion

Explicitly Not a Fit if:

This role will not be a good match if most of your experience comes from:

Financial services, enterprise IT, SaaS, or purely digital products
Public sector, policy, or compliance-driven program environments
Consulting-heavy roles where delivery was abstracted from execution
Large organizations where programs were insulated from hands-on engineering, production, or supplier realities

Those environments develop strong general PM skillsbut they do not prepare you for the technical density, decision pressure, and cross disciplinary integration required here.

What Does Translate

You don't need to have worked on airborne gimbals specificallybut you do need to have lived inside complex engineered systems where:

Software and hardware co-evolve
Engineering trade-offs directly affect cost, schedule, and performance
Programs succeed or fail based on sequencing, realism, and technical judgmentnot reporting cadence

If you've helped shepherd a difficult system from concept through integration and deliveryand you know why it was hardyou're likely in the right territory.

Why PVLabs?

Because you want to work on something hard, something meaningful, and you want to do it with people who are as driven, smart, and resourceful as you are. You work best in a place built around autonomy, mastery and purpose - and where resulting performance, trust, and accountability is measured in outputs, not hours.

Because you want to work where it matters.

At PV Labs, your work wont disappear into a slide deck. You'll be front and centre of a mission-driven engineering culture, designing high-performance, airborne stabilized imaging systems that outperform anything else in its class, by a significant margin.

Welcome to what may be the hardest job you've ever loved.

** PVLabs does not use Artificial Intelligence to scan resumes from applicants. We use real humans to do this. We would similarly appreciate if real humans applied to our jobs.

PV Labs

Open Positions

Technical Project Engineer