Ontic, a leading licensor and manufacturer of complex engineering parts for the global aerospace and defence industries, are now recruiting for a Test Engineering Manager to join our Engineering Team where you'll support us in leading and developing a dedicated team of Test Engineers. This role will be based at our Bishops Cleeve site in Cheltenham.
Are you an experienced Test Engineering Manager looking for your next challenge? Or are you a Senior Test Engineer ready to take the next step into leadership? If you thrive in a fast-paced, high-tech manufacturing environment and enjoy solving complex technical challenges while developing high-performing teams, we'd love to hear from you.
Ontic is a more than just a business, we're a community of innovators who pride ourselves on fostering a culture where talent thrives, ideas flourish, and careers are built. We're committed to excellence, driving us to continuously improve and adapt, ensuring that we remain at the forefront of our industry.
The Role:
Reporting to the Head of Engineering, you'll lead a team of skilled Test Engineers responsible for delivering robust test capability across our production operations. This is a hands-on leadership role where you'll combine technical expertise with people management, ensuring our products meet the highest standards of quality, reliability and performance.
You'll play a key role in supporting production, introducing new products, driving continuous improvement and ensuring our test systems remain efficient, capable and future-ready.
What You'll Be Doing
Lead, mentor and develop a team of Test Engineers, creating a culture of collaboration, accountability and continuous improvement.
Oversee the commissioning, validation and ongoing support of production test equipment.
Drive root cause investigations and corrective actions, troubleshooting faults to component level across analogue, digital or RF electronics.
Support Production Test Technicians through coaching, training and technical guidance.
Contribute to New Product Introduction (NPI) and the successful transition of newly acquired or licensed products into production.
Work closely with Engineering, Operations, suppliers and customers to deliver business objectives.
Improve product quality, reduce the cost of poor quality and optimise manufacturing performance through data-driven decision making.
About you:
At Ontic, our culture is integral to making sure we enjoy our work and deliver for our customers. While we look for the right skillset, we're also looking for someone who will thrive within our recognition and empowerment culture.
To be successful in this role you'll need to be a technically strong leader who enjoys developing people as much as solving engineering challenges.
You'll ideally have:
A Level 5 qualification (or higher) in Electronics Engineering.
Leadership experience within a manufacturing or production environment, or be a Senior Test Engineer ready to move into management.
Strong component-level fault-finding skills across analogue, digital or RF electronics.
Experience within a regulated manufacturing environment (aerospace experience is advantageous but not essential).
A structured, analytical approach to root cause analysis and continuous improvement.
Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
The ability to balance strategic leadership with hands-on technical support.
Willingness to travel internationally when required to support product transfers and customer requirements.
Benefits
At Ontic we care about your financial, physical, and mental wellness so we offer a range of benefits to support this, we care about what matters to you and have a valued culture of recognition and empowerment, accompanied by benefits that support work/life balance.
Our benefits package highlights include:
- Up to 29 days annual leave plus Bank Holidays
- 10 hours paid volunteering time
- Annual goal share bonus scheme for all employees
- 24/7 Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
- Discounts and offers from a range of retailers
Best place to work
We are more than the sum of our parts. And we’ve been recognised internally and externally for being so:
- We were ranked #9 in Best Companies’ Q3 leaderboard for Best Manufacturing Company based on our employee feedback
- 72.5% of employees who took part in our 2023 employee satisfaction survey said they are proud to work at Ontic
No day is the same at Ontic; we have doubled in size over the last couple of years and are still in rapid growth. We attribute our success to empowering colleagues to create the opportunity, fostering an environment of autonomy where we ask for forgiveness, not permission.
Our values
Our values are intrinsic to everything we do:
- We share a common sense - we’re a global family of specialists with a shared passion for precision.
- We have the freedom to choose - we’re challengers and innovators with the freedom to think differently and challenge the status quo.
- We create the opportunity - we’re change-makers with a clear direction and can-do spirit.
We are a fast-paced business with ambitious growth plans; so if you are dedicated, enthusiastic and always seeking ways to improve, you'll enjoy a career with us!
