Sr Principal Systems Engineer - Avionics Network Architect (Hybrid)

The Computing Products Department (CPD) at Collins Aerospace is building a next‑generation family of safety‑critical avionics Ethernet switches—and we’re looking for a Sr Principal Systems Engineer who wants to shape the networking architecture that future aircraft will rely on for decades. This role sits at the center of systems architecture, embedded networking, silicon strategy, firmware, software, safety, and cybersecurity. If you want to help define what comes after today’s AFDX‑based networks, this is the opportunity. 

What You Will Do:

• Architect the Next Generation of Avionics Networking Products 

• You will lead the architecture for a scalable family of deterministic avionics Ethernet switches—defining the technical roadmap, reusable building blocks, interfaces, configuration strategy, and engineering principles guiding multiple future platforms. 

You’ll drive architectural decisions across: 

• Port count, topology, bandwidth, latency, jitter, buffering 

• Redundancy and availability strategies 

• Switch silicon, processors, memory, PHY/SerDes technologies 

• Copper/fiber interfaces, packaging, power, and thermal constraints 

• Hardware/software/firmware partitioning and growth paths  

Lead the Evolution from AFDX to Deterministic Ethernet & TSN 

You will define architectures that integrate today’s ARINC 664 Part 7 / AFDX with emerging deterministic Ethernet technologies such as TSN, IEEE 802.1DP/SAE AS6675, advanced time synchronization, QoS, mixed‑criticality traffic, and network health monitoring. 

Engineer Deterministic Performance 

You will lead analyses to prove the architecture delivers deterministic performance: 

• End‑to‑end latency, worst‑case timing, traffic flow 

• Buffer/queue behaviors, packet loss, burst analysis 

• Multicast load, congestion behavior 

• Failure detection, network recovery timing 

• Synchronization accuracy, scalability, capacity 

Technical Leadership Across Disciplines 

This role requires coordinating hardware, software, firmware, systems, test, safety, and cybersecurity engineering—guiding how all disciplines contribute to one coherent networking architecture. You will mentor networking engineers, shape design patterns, lead major reviews, and engage across customer, supplier, and cross‑functional teams. 

Qualifications You Must Have:

• Typically requires a degree in Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) and minimum 10 years prior relevant experience or an Advanced Degree in a related field

The strongest candidates will have significant experience in several of the following areas: 

• Avionics network architecture and deterministic networking 

• Ethernet switching, bridging, Layer 2/3, IP networking 

• VLANs, QoS, priority management, multicast 

• Traffic policing/shaping, redundancy, sync 

• Switch/router/NIC/gateway configuration 

• Network performance analysis, packet capture, troubleshooting 

• Network simulation and automated testing 

• Embedded HW/SW integration 

• Requirements development, system architecture, interface definition 

• Integration, verification & validation, trade studies, root‑cause analysis 

Qualifications We Prefer:

• Particularly relevant experience includes: 

• ARINC 664 Part 7 / AFDX 

• IEEE 802.1 TSN, aerospace TSN (IEEE 802.1DP / SAE AS6675) 

• Precision time synchronization 

• Fault‑tolerant Ethernet, mixed‑criticality networking 

• Gigabit/multi‑Gigabit embedded Ethernet 

• Network switch ASICs, network processors, FPGA packet processing 

• PHY/SerDes architecture 

• Network configuration/management architectures 

• Network telemetry, diagnostics, Wireshark 

• Traffic‑generation and performance‑test equipment 

• Hardware‑in‑the‑loop and systems integration labs 

• DO‑178C, DO‑254/AC 20‑152A, ARP4754A/B, DO‑326A

• Reusable safety‑critical platform development