Demand for engineers soars on back of global UAV boom

Working Week talks to Chris Brown, director of engineering at UAV systems developer Athena, about life on the cutting edge of a young and fast-growing industry

What is it like working with UAVs at the moment?

It’s very attractive lately because there’s so much interest in it. We really have more customers than we know what to do with. People are trying different types and flavours of UAVs, and it’s really interesting to work with all these different configurations.

It’s very exciting being involved in developing all the different things that people are dreaming up. It’s the start of the UAV boom.

Are there many opportunities in the UAV field?

Yes, it’s huge. We can’t find people fast enough for the number of openings we have for engineers.

Our company has grown 50-70% year-on-year since inception and the potential is enormous.

What types of jobs are there in the industry?

Different sorts of engineering is involved in UAVs. The core people in areas such as flight control usually need some background in UAVs, but there are different parts to it. You need hardware engineers to lay out the control systems. A lot of people are joining from telecoms world, which is in a downturn.

There’s a certain line of it that’s very specialised, but for a lot of supporting roles engineers can come from a range of disciplines and industries.

A lot of people come from manned aviation because that’s a direction that UAVs are going, in terms of improving reliability.

What do you look for in potential recruits?

We look for an engineering degree at bachelors or masters level. The products are usually pretty fast moving and require the person to wear many different hats and know a bit about software, hardware and other engineering disciplines so we look for a person that’s very flexible and has a varied background.

What attracted you to work in the UAV industry?

Ever since I was a child aircraft have interested me. My grandfather was a pilot in the Second World War. My background has led towards what I do now. I have a degree in aerospace and electrical engineering, so UAVs seemed the perfect fit. I always liked aeroplanes and computers and it all just came together.

Source: Flight International