SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company developing intelligent autonomy systems, uncrewed aircraft, and simulation technologies for mission-critical operations worldwide. This Staff Engineer role leads the development and operationalization of high-performance simulation capabilities supporting Hivemind Mission Autonomy programs in Australia.
You will architect and implement distributed, real-time and faster-than-real-time simulation environments used by autonomy, perception, and systems engineering teams to design, test, and validate cutting-edge uncrewed aircraft mission autonomy. This is a technical leadership position with significant scope: you will design simulation frameworks that support both customer defense programs and internal R&D, lead teams of 5+ engineers across software, autonomy, perception, and test functions, and drive innovation in CI/CD, test-driven development, and simulation tooling.
Key responsibilities include:
- Architecting distributed, real-time simulation systems across virtual, constructive, and live environments
- Implementing high-performance C++ software for modeling, simulation, integration workflows, and system interoperability, including legacy standards compatibility
- Developing and optimizing real-time distributed simulation software for multi-agent scenarios, high-fidelity environments, and system-of-systems simulations
- Integrating defense simulation frameworks (AFSIM, NGTS) to accelerate delivery and align with customer expectations
- Designing containerized simulation deployments using Docker and Kubernetes for development, CI, testing, and operational environments
- Providing technical and project leadership to cross-functional engineering teams
- Collaborating with autonomy, perception, and hardware teams to connect simulation with algorithms, interfaces, and automated test pipelines
- Supporting key customer programs with robust, validated, scalable simulation environments
REQUIREMENTS:
- Tertiary qualification in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mechatronics, or related field
- Extensive professional experience in software engineering and systems integration
- Strong experience with modern C++ and familiarity with legacy C++ standards
- Professional experience with Python
- Demonstrated success delivering reliable software in fast-paced engineering environments
- Experience leading teams delivering complex engineering or software projects
- Hands-on experience with real-time, distributed simulation systems or HWIL/SWIL environments
- Experience with Docker or similar containerization technologies
- Proficiency in Linux development environments
- Strong problem-solving capability and ability to work through complex technical challenges
- Strong collaboration, accountability, and teamwork skills
- Ability to obtain an Australian NV1 security clearance
PREFERRED:
- Defence industry experience
- Experience with uncrewed systems, particularly air domain
- Experience with AFSIM, NGTS, or similar defence simulation environments
- Experience with data processing, analysis pipelines, or test automation workflows (Python-based)
