Lead Systems Engineer

Kapsch is one of Austria's most successful global technology companies. With its comprehensive ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) portfolio, Kapsch is actively addressing the challenges of the present and the future with intelligent mobility solutions in a wide range of application areas. As a family-owned company founded in 1892 and headquartered in Vienna, Kapsch can look back on 130 years of experience with the future. To learn more about our solutions and innovations, visit our website here.

As Lead Systems Engineer, you'll hold the highest level of technical ownership on our Systems Engineering track, joining a dispersed, cross-disciplinary team of hardware, software, and electrical engineers. You'll own how the pieces come together as one working system — roadside hardware, embedded devices, applications, and back-office software — from bid phase through integration, commissioning, and operational handoff on high-visibility tolling and roadside infrastructure programs that continue to expand as the toll road increases in capacity, capabilities and integrates new technologies.

This is a role for someone who wants to be the technical face of the client relationship, build trust with customers over the life of a program, and own the requirements baseline from the first conversation through final acceptance. You'll translate customer needs into clear, buildable, and verifiable requirements; manage expectations and scope as the solution evolves; and lead difficult technical conversations.

You'll also hold the seams between hardware and software where most programs get into trouble, maintain the end-to-end technical view of the solution, and step in to drive the technical path forward whenever the team hits a roadblock.

How You'll Make an Impact

• Serve as the primary technical point of contact —Lead technical discussions, understand the client's business and operational objectives, communicate tradeoffs clearly, manage expectations, and navigate difficult technical or scope conversations with professionalism and sound judgment.
• Own the requirements baseline end-to-end — lead requirements elicitation, analysis, decomposition, specification, validation, traceability, and change control from the first customer conversation through final acceptance. Translate customer needs and contractual requirements into clear, testable, and achievable system requirements, while identifying gaps, ambiguities, dependencies, and risks before they become program issues.
• Manage requirements and scope as the solution evolves — establish and maintain requirements traceability across hardware, software, electrical, integration, and verification activities.
• Own the integrated solution end-to-end — from bid-phase sales support, proposal review, and requirement gap analysis, through hardware and software design decisions, to integration, commissioning, and operational handoff.
• Overall responsibility for the technical implementation - including installation/implementation phase ensuring the system is delivered efficiently to required quality.
• Define and control the interfaces between roadside hardware (sensors, cameras, controllers, gantry equipment, power) and the software layer (applications, databases, back-office systems) — specifying protocols, data flows, timing, dependencies, and failure behavior so subsystems perform as one system.
• Support integration, verification, and validation — support the test and commissioning strategy, drive FAT/SAT, and lead troubleshooting where hardware, firmware, and software meet in the field.
• Design and maintain the full solution architecture — systems, interfaces, protocols, databases, and applications — while maintaining end-to-end awareness of where bottlenecks exist, where requirements are at risk, and where the design can be optimized.
• Lead cross-functional teams across the program — align hardware, software, and electrical engineering against a single requirements baseline, resolve technical dependencies, and keep both internal stakeholders and the client informed as the design evolves.
• Build out the physical design layer — wiring diagrams, civil drawing interpretation, and cable/conduit layouts — partnering with highway designers to fit our technology into the physical infrastructure.
• Set the technical direction and standard for how the team delivers — step in to unblock the team and propose solutions when work stalls, challenge assumptions constructively, and provide the technical leadership needed to keep the program moving.
• Connect technical execution to customer outcomes — understand not only what the system must do, but why the client needs it to work that way. Use that understanding to make practical engineering decisions, communicate tradeoffs, and deliver solutions that satisfy both technical requirements and operational objectives.

What Makes You a Great Fit

• Bachelor's Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.
• 10+ years of professional experience delivering complex systems where hardware and software are integrated and deployed in the field.
• Demonstrated ability to own a client relationship from a technical perspective on a multi-year program, including building trust with customer stakeholders, understanding their needs, managing expectations, communicating technical tradeoffs, and handling difficult scope or technical discussions directly with the customer.
• 5+ years implementing technical solutions, with a practical background in systems engineering, including system architectures, interfaces, protocols, databases, and frameworks.
• Demonstrated ownership of hardware/software integration through at least one full lifecycle — design, integration, test, commissioning, and handoff.
• 4+ years of experience and expertise across two or more of: electrical, mechanical, civil, structural, software, embedded/firmware, database, or systems integration engineering.
• Strong requirements engineering experience — eliciting requirements from customers and stakeholders, writing and decomposing requirements, identifying gaps and ambiguities, establishing traceability from customer specifications through verification, and managing requirements and change control on a live program.
• Excellent communication and relationship-management skills, with the ability to establish credibility with both technical and non-technical stakeholders and maintain productive client relationships through challenging project situations.
• Working knowledge of IP networking — enough to integrate, configure, and troubleshoot devices on the network (our environment runs on Cisco). Certification not required.
• Proven ability to lead technical conversations with customers, make sound technical decisions, and guide successful cross-functional collaboration.
• Ability to develop and deliver technical presentations while engaging with and managing client relationships.
• Strong written communication skills, including the ability to produce clear requirements, specifications, interface definitions, technical documentation, and customer-facing communications.
• Ability to recognize when a customer request represents a requirement clarification, a change in scope, or a technical risk — and appropriately manage each situation.
• Curiosity, ownership, and a roll-up-your-sleeves mindset, balanced with strong team collaboration.

Bonus Qualifications

• Professional Engineer (PE) license or Engineer in Training (EIT) certification.
• Networking certification (CCNA, CCNP, or equivalent).
• Background in tolling or traffic systems.
• Prior technical or people leadership.
• Project management skills, with knowledge of business economics.
• Experience estimating time and effort for system functionalities.
• Familiarity with relevant international standards.

• The opportunity to solve complex problems that improve the daily lives of people around the world.
• Career growth, stability, and the opportunity to develop within a global organization.
• A full benefits package, including unlimited paid time off, 11 paid holidays, 401(k), a no-cost medical insurance option for employees and eligible dependents, and an FSA option.

Take the next step in your career with Kapsch

We believe hiring is a human decision. AI supports some of the operational side of our process (things like interview scheduling and coordination), but every step that matters is handled by a person. Your application will be read, your interviews will be conducted, and your offer will be made by humans who are genuinely invested in getting it right.

Applicants must have working rights in the US and pass a background check.

Kapsch is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities throughout the recruitment process. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please contact our TA team. Kapsch TrafficCom is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to creating an inclusive workplace. We consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to any legally protected characteristic under applicable federal, state, or local law. Kapsch TrafficCom is a drug-free workplace.