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# Principal Systems Engineer

- **Company:** Xsens
- **Location:** Enschede, Netherlands (Remote available)
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Software Applications, Systems Engineering, Cloud Computing, Embedded Software, Real-Time Operating Systems, Systems Architecture, Cloud Platform System, Low Latency, Multiaccess Edge Computing
- **Published:** September 2, 2026
- **Apply:** https://careers.xsens.com/o/principal-systems-engineer

## About the Role

We are looking for a highly curious, hands-on Principal Systems Engineer who thrives on challenging multidisciplinary problems. You combine broad systems thinking with enough technical depth to challenge specialists, learn unfamiliar domains quickly and turn ambiguity into a workable path forward. You have:

 * 10+ years of experience building complex high-tech products

 * Substantial experience in system-level or cross-domain technical leadership

 * Proven experience designing or owning complex multidisciplinary systems

 * Experience across several of hardware, embedded software, algorithms, networking, real-time software, robotics, edge or cloud systems

 * Strong understanding of system interfaces, performance budgets and engineering trade-offs

 * A track record of solving difficult problems across engineering boundaries and shipping real products

 * Strong first-principles thinking and the ability to challenge established assumptions constructively

 * Technical credibility to influence senior engineers without relying on formal authority

 * Excellent English communication skills and a collaborative, low-ego mindset

Experience across different industries or technology domains is a strong advantage

What we value in this role

 * You are deeply curious about technology, including areas outside your own expertise

 * You naturally think in complete systems rather than isolated components

 * You challenge assumptions and look beyond the traditional motion-capture solution space

 * You have a strong can-do mentality and bias for action, experimentation and learning

 * You move comfortably from system-level thinking to hands-on investigation

 * You get energy from solving difficult problems that have no obvious answer

## Description

Are you the kind of person who cannot stop at understanding how a system works, but wants to know how it could work fundamentally better? Do you enjoy connecting the dots across hardware, embedded software, algorithms, and application software? Do you challenge established assumptions, explore new system architectures, and see opportunities beyond the boundaries of traditional motion capture? If you are driven by complex problems, curious about what is possible, and excited to shape systems from the ground up, we'd love to have you!, As Principal Systems Engineer, you are the senior technical thinker who connects the engineering disciplines at Xsens and makes the whole system work as one. You look beyond individual components and subsystems. Your focus is the technical coherence, behavior, and performance of the complete product and how to make it fundamentally better.

You work across hardware, embedded software, algorithms, application software and external platforms. You identify dependencies and trade-offs early, define critical interfaces and help teams optimize the complete product rather than for their individual domain.

We are looking for someone intensely curious, someone who challenges assumptions and explores how robotics, AI, edge computing, cloud and other high-tech domains can shape the next generation of Xsens technology. You combine that curiosity with a pragmatic, hands-on can-do mentality. You do not just explore what could be possible; you help turn it into something that works.

This is a hybrid role based in Enschede, the Netherlands, with flexibility to work partially from home. Regular on-site presence is expected as you will work closely with multidisciplinary engineering teams and physical products.

Key responsibilities:

 * Own and evolve end-to-end system architecture and system behavior

 * Connect the dots across hardware, embedded software, algorithms and application software into coherent products and platforms

 * Define critical system interfaces and budgets including latency, compute, bandwidth, power, thermal performance and synchronization

 * Identify cross-domain dependencies, technical risks and architectural trade-offs early

 * Lead system-level design reviews and drive decisions that optimize the complete system

 * Work closely with the Software Architect and domain leads to establish clear technical boundaries and interfaces

 * Dive into complex multidisciplinary problems and support root-cause analysis across system layers

 * Challenge established assumptions and bring in relevant approaches from adjacent technologies and industries

 * Explore future architectures for robotics, physical AI, simulation, edge and cloud applications

 * Turn new ideas into practical experiments, prototypes and scalable technical solutions

 * Create technical clarity that enables engineering teams to move independently and faster


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