Principal Systems Engineer — Smart City & Video Surveillance

Location: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (relocation supported)Type: Full-time, permanent Positions: 1 Experience: 15+ years Reports to: Programme technical leadership Language: English The programmeA national-scale programme in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is establishing sovereigncapability in urban intelligence: the design and deployment of city-wide video surveillanceand smart mobility infrastructure, and the establishment of indigenous engineering andmanufacturing capability for the hardware that underpins it.The programme spans systems architecture, product engineering, local manufacturing, andcommercialisation into regional and international markets. It is being built from theground up. The people joining now will define its technical and commercial foundationsrather than inherit them.The roleYou will own the systems engineering discipline for a surveillance and mobility estatebeing designed from a blank sheet — the architecture, the standards it is held to, and theverification regime that proves it works.This is not a role that maintains someone else's baseline. There is no incumbentarchitecture to defend, no accumulated compromise to work around, and no establishedintegration pattern you are obliged to inherit. You will decide how requirements arecaptured and traced, how the architecture is decomposed across cameras, networks, analyticsand storage, how multi-vendor subsystems are held to interoperability, and what evidenceconstitutes verification and validation at city scale. Those decisions will governdeployments measured in tens of thousands of endpoints.The work is genuinely cross-disciplinary. In a single week you may be arbitrating a sensorselection against low-light performance requirements, resolving a bandwidth model thatstorage architecture cannot sustain, setting the cybersecurity baseline for connected edgedevices, and explaining a lifecycle cost position to an executive sponsor. It suits anengineer who has operated at the intersection of hardware, network and software and iscomfortable being the person the disagreement escalates to.You will also be building the discipline itself — the processes, the templates, the reviewgates and, over time, the local engineering team that inherits them. Candidates who haveestablished systems engineering practice in an organisation that previously lacked it willrecognise the shape of this work.## What you will do- Define, decompose and manage requirements across the programme, and maintain traceability  from stakeholder need through to verification evidence- Develop and own the system architecture spanning cameras and sensors, networking,  video management, analytics, edge compute and storage- Lead systems integration across multiple vendors, holding interoperability to industry  standards and defined communication protocols- Establish and execute the verification and validation regime, including test strategy,  acceptance criteria and evidence management- Conduct technology evaluations, system performance assessments and technical due diligence  on products, vendors and partners- Set the cybersecurity baseline for connected and edge-deployed systems, working with  security and network stakeholders- Own lifecycle planning — obsolescence, refresh strategy, scalability and total cost of  ownership- Establish systems engineering process, standards and review gates for the programme, and  build the local engineering capability that sustains them- Advise executive stakeholders on technical strategy, risk and trade-off decisionsRequired expertise- Demonstrated expertise in systems engineering principles, including requirements  definition, architecture development, systems integration, verification and validation- Strong technical knowledge of CCTV and video surveillance systems, including IP cameras,  video management systems (VMS), video analytics and storage solutions- Solid understanding of semiconductor technologies, electronic components, sensors,  embedded systems and hardware platforms supporting security and monitoring solutions- Knowledge of networking and communications technologies, including TCP/IP, fibre optics,  wireless communications, industrial networks, and cybersecurity principles for connected  systems- Familiarity with IoT devices, smart sensors, edge computing and AI-enabled surveillance  technologies- Experience integrating multi-vendor systems and ensuring interoperability through industry  standards and communication protocols- Understanding of applicable international standards and best practices for systems  engineering, physical security and critical infrastructure- Ability to perform technology evaluations, system performance assessments, lifecycle  planning and technical due diligence- 15+ years of experience in the field- Substantial delivery experience in North American or Western European technology  environments, with demonstrable fluency in the engineering standards, regulatory regimes  and quality practices of those marketsAdvantageous- Experience in the Smart City and Smart Mobility domains- INCOSE certification (CSEP or ESEP) or equivalent formal systems engineering credential- Experience establishing a systems engineering function where none previously existed- Exposure to critical national infrastructure or public safety programmes- Standards familiarity: ISO/IEC 15288, ONVIF, IEC 62443