The posting, in Shield AI's own words
archived Sep 9, 2026What you’ll do
Apply systems engineering principles to the development and integration of autonomous systems for defense applications. Translate operational needs, mission objectives, and customer requirements into clear system, subsystem, software, and autonomy requirements. Develop and maintain system architectures, functional decompositions, interface definitions, Interface Control Documents, requirements traceability, and verification strategies. Work closely with autonomy, software, guidance, navigation and control, avionics, hardware, test, and platform engineering teams to ensure successful system integration. Define and manage interfaces between Hivemind Autonomy, vehicle systems, mission systems, sensors, communications, payloads, and external systems. Maintain a strong understanding of the underlying autonomy and software architecture, including how system level requirements translate into software behavior and implementation. Develop software, prototypes, analysis tools, test infrastructure, and engineering utilities using C++ and Python when required to solve integration and system level engineering problems. Use code, simulation, logs, telemetry, and other engineering data to investigate system behavior, diagnose failures, validate assumptions, and support technical decision making. Lead and support system integration activities across simulation, software in the loop, hardware in the loop, ground test, and flight test environments.
Required Qualifications
BS or MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Robotics, or a related technical discipline. 5+ years of experience developing, integrating, or delivering complex software intensive systems, preferably within aerospace, defense, robotics, or autonomous systems. Strong software engineering background with hands on experience developing and debugging software in C++ and Python. Experience with autonomous or robotic systems, including familiarity with areas such as perception, planning, estimation, guidance, navigation, controls, or mission autonomy. Strong understanding of systems engineering principles and their application to complex defense systems. Experience developing and managing system and subsystem requirements, including requirements decomposition, allocation, traceability, and verification. Experience developing system architectures, functional architectures, interface definitions, Interface Control Documents, and other system level engineering artifacts.