Aviation Safety Manager

Company Overview

Metrea delivers effects-as-a-service to national security partners across five domains and more than a dozen mission areas. These include airborne ISR, electronic warfare, secure communications, aerial refueling, special air missions, aerial firefighting, and advanced simulation. We own the whole stack: designing, building, and operating turnkey capabilities that give our partners decisive, asymmetric advantage against rapidly evolving threats.

Our operating model is built around three interlocking pillars. The Support Groups provide a global shared-service – spanning people, finance, platform, operations, legal, and engagement. This frees up our Core Groups, who develop and own mission capabilities end-to-end, to focus entirely on delivery. The Market Groups apply a regional lens, ensuring that our agile and adaptable capabilities remain aligned to the wicked problems that matter most to our partners across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific.

At the heart of our model is a simple but powerful idea: be a true partner with skin in the game. Our partners need effects, not just equipment. By owning the full stack – from the lab to the field – we are able to drive a continuous cycle of innovation that keeps our partners ahead. It's a fast-moving, intellectually demanding environment where talented people are given real responsibility, work on problems that matter, and contribute to an enterprise that is growing quickly and deliberately.

Headquartered in Washington, DC, with facilities across the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as Continental Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Group Overview

Metrea delivers effects-as-a-service to national security partners across five domains and more than a dozen mission areas, including airborne ISR, electronic warfare, secure communications, aerial refuelling, special mission aviation, aerial firefighting, and advanced simulation.

Metrea is actively building its presence in Australia as part of a deliberate, globally coordinated expansion into the Asia-Pacific region. Our Asia-Pacific Market Group, headquartered in Brisbane with an additional office in Perth, is the enterprise's dedicated regional interface, connecting Australia's national security community with Metrea's full suite of capabilities across three core domains: Aerospace, Electromagnetic & Cyber, and Digital & Synthetic. Metrea is now bringing that same depth of mission expertise and proven operating model to Australia.

Underpinning these capabilities is a global network of Support Groups spanning people, finance, platform, operations, legal, and engagement, ensuring that as we grow in Australia, we do so with the full weight of an established global enterprise behind us.

Metrea's solutions are built for elegance: effective, efficient, and evolving, enabling our partners to scale capacity and achieve asymmetric advantage against rapidly evolving threats.

Position Summary

In this role, you will be the nominated Safety Manager and key person for Metrea's Australian aerial work operations under Part 138 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998 (CASR). Reporting directly to the Head of Special Air Missions Australia (the Accountable Manager), you will lead the day-to-day operation, maintenance and continual improvement of the aviation Safety Management System (SMS), provide independent safety advice and give leaders a clear view of safety performance and risk.

The Accountable Manager remains ultimately accountable for the safety of the operation and the SMS. You will have direct access to the Accountable Manager and sufficient organisational independence to raise concerns without undue influence. You will work closely with Flight Operations, Training and Checking, Continuing Airworthiness, maintenance, WHS and Operational Compliance so that aviation safety risks are managed coherently without blurring regulatory accountabilities.

You will be successful if you can turn reporting, operational insight and safety data into practical risk controls, sustain a just and learning culture, and demonstrate to CASA and customers that the SMS is effective in day-to-day operations as well as compliant on paper.

What You'll Do

• Perform the responsibilities of the Safety Manager under CASR Part 138 and manage the operation, maintenance and continual improvement of the aviation SMS in accordance with the operations manual

• Advise the Accountable Manager and senior leaders on aviation safety risk, regulatory obligations, safety performance, emerging issues and the resources needed for an effective SMS

• Maintain the processes for confidential and mandatory occurrence reporting, hazard identification, safety risk assessment and mitigation, and promote a just culture that supports open reporting and organisational learning

• Lead or coordinate aviation safety investigations and ensure corrective, remedial and preventive actions address causal and systemic issues, are tracked to closure and are verified for effectiveness

• Establish and monitor safety performance indicators and targets; analyse events, hazards, trends and operational data; and report regularly to the Accountable Manager and relevant safety governance forums on SMS effectiveness

• Coordinate aviation safety assurance activities, including operational safety reviews, surveys, inspections and assurance of critical controls, while maintaining clear interfaces with independent compliance monitoring and WHS assurance

• Lead safety management training, communication and promotion so personnel understand the safety policy, their SMS responsibilities and the hazards and controls relevant to their work

• Coordinate the aviation Emergency Response Plan with accountable functions, lead exercises and debriefs, and ensure lessons and improvements are incorporated into the SMS

• Assess the safety implications of organisational, operational, technical and contractual change and ensure risks are understood, controlled and accepted at the appropriate level before implementation

• Act as the principal aviation safety interface with CASA, customers and relevant external stakeholders, maintaining auditable SMS records and supporting regulatory applications, surveillance and notifications

What You Bring

• Sufficient relevant experience in carrying out air operations, or managing people who carry out air operations, to meet CASR 138.110 and support the nature and complexity of Metrea's Australian operations

• Sufficient relevant safety management experience to capably lead, manage and set standards for implementation of the SMS in accordance with the operations manual

• A satisfactory record in the conduct or management of air operations and the integrity, judgement and independence required of regulatory key personnel

• Sufficient knowledge of Australian civil aviation legislation and aviation safety to enable Part 138 aerial work operations to be conducted safely and in accordance with the operations manual

• Demonstrated competence in aviation SMS principles and practice, including safety policy and objectives, safety risk management, safety assurance, management of change, safety promotion and emergency-response coordination

• Experience managing occurrence reporting, aviation investigations, root-cause and contributing-factor analysis, corrective action and safety-performance monitoring

• Strong leadership and communication skills, including the ability to advise and challenge senior leaders, engage operational personnel and communicate complex safety matters clearly in writing and verbally

• Ability to satisfy CASA's fit-and-proper-person assessment and demonstrate competency through relevant experience, qualifications, training and any assessment required by CASA

Nice to Haves

• A degree or recognised vocational qualification in aviation safety, aviation management, human factors, risk management or a related field

• Formal training in safety man