The posting
We're building the UK's next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience.
We specialise in turning advances in sensing, AI, and communications into operational capability for the edge, where connectivity may be degraded or denied. Our work focuses on accelerating the deployment of technology, improving decision-making for frontline teams, and protecting people and critical assets in demanding environments.
Headquartered in Bristol, Rowden employs around 200 people and operates over 20,000 square feet of engineering and manufacturing facilities. We have a growing international footprint and are one of Europe's fastest-growing engineering businesses.
About the role
We are hiring an Edge Compute Lead to take ownership of the hardware our engineers design, build and test on. The scope of the role will encompass everything from resource-constrained edge nodes, through to test infrastructure and high-performance compute.
Working within the Platforms team, you will ensure that decisions made at the silicon, board and network layer support what runs above them - operating systems, orchestration, inference stacks and applications. This is a hands-on technical role without direct reports. Your influence will come from judgement, evidence, and the quality of what you put in front of engineers.
You'll be the person teams come to when they need to know what to build on. You will hold a set of known-good, documented configurations, advise projects on the right platform for the problem in front of them, and stand up reference systems and test capabilities that let people prove their work early and repeatedly.
This role requires an average of 4 days per week on-site at our Bristol HQ, with occasional travel.
Candidates must be eligible for SC clearance.
More information about security clearance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels
Key areas of responsibility
As Edge Compute Lead at Rowden, you will:
- Own the engineering hardware estate: specify, procure, configure and maintain compute, HPC, GPU, storage and networking hardware across its full life, from selection to retirement.
- Lead on edge hardware: evaluate and integrate small form factor compute so that our systems perform wherever they are deployed.
- Build reference systems: create and maintain representative engineering systems and test capabilities that teams can rely on for integration, test & evaluation.
- Align hardware with software: work with the Platforms team so that firmware, drivers, interconnect and accelerator choices support the operating system and application layers above.
- Advise project teams: recommend platforms, publish known-good configurations, and help engineers reach the right hardware decision quickly.
- Set the standard: define and hold sensible standardisation, documentation and configuration baselines, so kit is supportable and reproducible rather than bespoke to one project.
- Keep things performant and available: benchmark, monitor and plan capacity, resolve faults, and manage spares, warranties and refresh cycles.
- Managing suppliers: build relationships with vendors and integrators, test claims against real workloads, and get good value from specialist purchases.
Key skills, experience and behaviours
We don't expect anyone to be a 10/10 in every area, and you don't need to tick every single bullet point to apply. What follows is a list of the skills and experience that we think matter most for this role. Different strengths are welcome, and we recognise that people grow into roles like this - don't let this list put you off!
- Hands-on experience specifying, building and running compute hardware for engineering, research, or laboratory use.
- Practical knowledge of GPU and accelerated computing, including how memory, interconnect and thermal limits shape real workload performance.
- Experience with embedded or ruggedised compute platforms under size, weight and power constraints.
- Strong Linux fundamentals, including firmware, drivers, provisioning and troubleshooting close to the metal.
- Working knowledge of networking and storage sufficient to design and debug systems end to end.
- A track record of turning an ad hoc collection of kit into a standardised, documented, supportable estate.
- Experience procuring specialist hardware and holding suppliers to account on lead times, support and performance.
- Experience with edge AI modules, CUDA, and the surrounding driver and container stack.
- Familiarity with bare-metal provisioning.
- Background in defence, aerospace, motorsport, scientific computing or another sector with demanding hardware requirements.
About you
- You are genuinely interested in technology and in what it lets the end user do, not in the specification sheet for its own sake.
- You enjoy being the person others ask, and you give a straight answer with the reasoning behind it.
- You test claims rather than accept them, and you are comfortable saying when a shiny option is the wrong one.
- You are happy with your hands on the kit, and equally happy writing the documentation that means nobody has to ask you twice.
- You work well with engineers and translate easily between what they need and what the hardware can give them.
No prior defence experience is required. We're interested in people who've built and run hardware for demanding environments that want to see their work reach the field.
Working at Rowden
We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are!
We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible, hybrid-working model, with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part-time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.
Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.
Finally, if you feel that you don’t meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we’d still love to hear from you!
