Delivery/Integration Engineer

Role Overview

Delivery/Integration Engineer at Thales, located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This customer-facing role installs, configures, and integrates Thales products within customer environments, working directly at customer premises from presales through post-deployment support.

Company Overview

Thales is a global leader in aerospace, transportation, defence, security, and space. For over 50 years, Thales has been a trusted partner of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, providing advanced solutions across Defence, Public Security, Civil Aviation, Space, Enterprise, and Cybersecurity. Thales established SAMI Thales Electronic Systems (STES), a Joint Venture with Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI), to localise defence technologies and systems in alignment with Saudi Vision 2030. Thales employs 80,000 people across 68 countries.

Role Purpose

Ensure successful deployment and integration of Thales solutions in customer environments by installing hardware, configuring systems, integrating with backend infrastructure, validating site readiness, documenting outcomes, coordinating with customer teams, executing acceptance testing, and supporting go-live and handover activities. The engineer represents Thales professionally throughout the project lifecycle while adhering to customer security and access procedures.

Key Responsibilities

Delivery & Integration

• Install and configure solutions on physical hardware or virtualized environments.
• Perform deployment and integration activities directly at customer premises, respecting customer site rules, access procedures, and security policies.
• Validate site readiness before installation, including access, infrastructure prerequisites, network connectivity, certificates, credentials, and required customer dependencies.
• Integrate solutions with customer backend systems and core network elements at customer premises.

Documentation & Knowledge Sharing

• Prepare and maintain technical documentation related to deployment, integration, troubleshooting, and handover.
• Create, maintain, and update customer acceptance test plans and related documentation when required.
• Follow Thales processes, delivery methodology, and integration best practices.
• Support development and validation teams during project delivery.
• Provide internal training or workshops to support teams when necessary.
• Contribute to knowledge sharing within the integration community by providing tools, lessons learned, and practical guidance.

Customer Coordination & Reporting

• Provide regular updates to the Project Manager on work progress, actual effort, risks, and estimated time to complete tasks.
• Coordinate daily with customer technical, network, security, and operations teams during deployment and acceptance phases.
• Provide clear technical status updates to customer stakeholders during on-site activities, covering progress, blockers, risks, and next steps.
• Identify, manage, and promptly escalate technical risks, blockers, site constraints, and customer-impacting issues to the Project Manager and relevant technical stakeholders.

Testing, Go-Live & Handover

• Execute the customer acceptance test plan with customer stakeholders.
• Troubleshoot technical issues on-site during installation, integration, acceptance testing, and early life support.
• Support customer go-live activities and post-deployment stabilization when required.
• Support handover to customer operations and support teams by clearly communicating documentation, known limitations, and operational procedures.

Qualifications & Experience

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Telecommunications, Engineering, or a related discipline; equivalent professional experience may be considered.

Experience

• At least 3–4 years of experience in systems administration, solution delivery, integration engineering, DevOps engineering, or software support.
• Advanced Linux/Unix experience with at least 3 years of hands-on usage.
• Experience troubleshooting deployment and integration issues in customer or production-like environments.
• Ability to work with customer infrastructure, network, security, and operations teams to resolve technical dependencies.

Skills & Competencies

Mandatory Technical Skills

• Unix systems: Strong knowledge of standard Linux administration and troubleshooting commands such as ps, netstat, rsync, netcat, umask, systemctl, journalctl, ssh, scp, grep, awk, and sed.
• Ability to read, understand, and maintain shell scripts. Ability to work independently in at least one scripting language used for Linux task automation, such as Bash, Python, or Perl.
• Network: Good understanding of IPv4 networking concepts, including subnetting, broadcast, default gateway, routing, and static route configuration.
• Experience with version control systems such as Git, Mercurial, or SVN.
• Experience with automation tools such as Ansible, Chef, or Puppet.
• Familiarity with cloud environments, preferably GCP, and microservices-based architectures.
• Familiarity with DevOps tools such as GitLab, Terraform, and Helm.
• Knowledge of containerization and orchestration technologies, including Docker and Kubernetes.
• SQL Language: Ability to write SQL queries, perform joins, and filter data to extract required information.
• Ability to clearly document technical findings, workarounds, known limitations, and deployment outcomes.

Optional Technical Skills

• Apache and web servers: Understanding of Apache virtual hosts, basic proxy configuration, and Directory/Location directives.
• Experience with SSL certificate configuration, including Basic authentication and mutual TLS authentication.
• Understanding of SOAP and other web services, including WS-Security concepts.
• Knowledge of NoSQL databases, preferably Cassandra.
• Familiarity with troubleshooting web service connectivity issues, including certificates, authentication, proxies, and network constraints.

Languages

• Fluent English, both written and spoken.
• Arabic language skills are strongly preferred for customer-facing work in Saudi Arabia.

Soft Skills

• Customer-oriented and strong communicator.
• Quick learner, self-starter, and team player.
• Organized, analytical, and able to manage conflicts and solve problems in a fast-paced environment.
• Professional attitude and ability to represent Thales positively when interacting with customer stakeholders.
• Comfortable working independently at customer premises while maintaining regular communication with the project team and management.

Additional Information

• Saudi Arabian citizenship is mandatory due to customer and local project requirements.
• The candidate must be eligible and willing to work at customer premises in Saudi Arabia and comply with customer site access, security, and administrative procedures.
• The candidate must comply with customer confidentiality, data protection, and security requirements when working in customer environments.
• Willing and able to travel and work on customer premises in Saudi Arabia according to project needs.
• Thales provides career development opportunities with a global mobility policy enabling employees to develop careers at home and abroad in existing areas of expertise or by branching into new fields.