General Application

You looked through our open roles and did not find yours. That happens more than you would think, and it is not a problem. We are scaling fast enough that the role we need from you may not exist on this page yet. If you are excellent at something that matters to building unmanned systems, we want to hear from you before we have got around to writing the job down.

Minerva Defence is a UK sovereign defence technology company building the full stack of unmanned systems for modern warfare: hardware, software, networking, autonomy, navigation and effectors. Our mission is simple: to help ensure the UK and its allies can defend themselves in an era where major conflict is no longer unthinkable.

We are deliberately low-profile: no hype, no performative marketing, just execution. We ideate, design, and manufacture from start to finish right here in the UK. Our products are in active use on the battlefield today, delivering real operational impact in the most demanding environments. Despite operating largely in stealth, our team of 60 people is delivering disproportionate effect, with tens of millions in annual revenue across UK and non-UK customers.

Our culture is elite, innovative and mission-focused. We are built to be asymmetric: small in headcount, relentless in execution, and outsized in battlefield impact. We are looking for people who are not just talented, but committed: to the work, to the team, and to the purpose behind it.

The best people rarely fit into a neat box or arrive at a convenient time, and at our rate of growth they are worth more to us than perfect timing or a tidy org chart, that's just pragmatism. So if you are genuinely excellent at something we are likely to need, in hardware, software, autonomy, manufacturing or operations or elsewhere, tell us now. We would rather build a role around the right person than miss them. We are committed to filling our teams with the best people we can find, and we will always explore opportunities to do that, even when the timing is not perfect. Every application here is read by a human, and the strong ones lead to a conversation.

People we are always in the market for:

• Engineers who have taken hardware from a first sketch to something that survives the real world
• Software people who write code that has to work the first time, in the field, with no second chance
• Autonomy, navigation and control specialists who have made machines behave in messy conditions
• Builders who have shipped a physical product end to end, not just a prototype
• Operators and domain experts who have used systems like ours in anger and know what actually matters
• People who have run something hard: a team, a programme, a production line, a crisis
• Generalists with a track record of learning a new field fast and becoming the person others rely on

Minimum:

• Competence. You are genuinely excellent at your discipline. That is where it starts, not where it ends.
• Commitment. You lean in when the moment demands it, without resentment, and you know when to switch off when it does not.
• Conviction. You care about what is being built, not just the engineering behind it. "I like the problems" is not quite enough on its own.
• Character. You make the people around you better, and you put the team and the mission ahead of personal credit. You are someone people want beside them when things get hard.

Preferred:

• Experience in demanding or secure environments such as defence, government, aerospace or banking
• Deep expertise in a domain that touches unmanned systems: hardware, software, autonomy, navigation, networking, manufacturing or operations
• A history of building things end to end and shipping them, not just designing them
• A rough idea already of what you would want to own here

We try to take the everyday pressures off your plate, so you can do your best work without worrying about the noise, and the benefits are built around that. It starts with real ownership: share options that vest over three years, so you hold a genuine stake in what we are building. You get a Claude Team account on day one and tools that keep up with you. Bupa private health is fully funded from your first day, the pension is a 6% employer contribution, and leave is generous, with 25 days plus bank holidays, your birthday off, and properly enhanced cover for both parents. The full detail comes with your offer.