SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Shield AI, a venture-backed defense-tech company, is seeking a Senior Staff Engineer for Weapons Integration to own the architecture, requirements development, and integration strategy for advanced autonomous aircraft systems. You will serve as the technical authority for weapons integration across data storage, weapons, payloads, avionics, and supporting aircraft systems, establishing performance budgets, interface definitions, and verification criteria aligned with vehicle-level objectives.
In this role, you will lead complex trade studies and system-of-systems analyses to balance performance, latency, bandwidth, storage capacity, reliability, power, cost, and schedule. You will define and guide integration and verification campaigns from laboratory and hardware-in-the-loop testing through flight test and fielding, partnering with safety, airworthiness, and certification teams to establish compliance approaches addressing applicable MIL Standards. You will lead multidisciplinary technical reviews and readiness assessments, aligning engineering teams, program leadership, customers, and partners on architecture decisions, technical maturity, integration risks, and mitigation plans. Additionally, you will mentor engineers and establish consistent practices for requirements quality, interface management, configuration control, and verification.
Shield AI's products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. The company operates globally with offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, with technology actively supporting operations worldwide.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related technical discipline
- 10+ years of relevant aerospace or defense experience, including at least 5 years developing and integrating weapons or complex aircraft mission systems
- Demonstrated technical ownership of mission system architectures spanning mission computing, data storage, avionics, payloads, and communications (line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight systems)
- Experience translating operational needs into requirements, performance budgets, interface definitions, and hardware/software specifications
- Strong knowledge of systems engineering and product development practices: requirements decomposition, architecture trade studies, interface management, configuration control, technical risk management, verification and validation
- Experience applying Modular Open Systems Approach principles and frameworks such as Open Mission Systems, Government Reference Architectures, or modular avionics standards
- Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary technical teams and supplier engineering activities from architecture definition through integration, test, and fielding
- Experience guiding design reviews, resolving complex integration issues, assessing technical maturity, and supporting safety/airworthiness compliance (DO 178C and DO 254 objectives)
- Strong technical communication and influencing skills; experience presenting to engineering leaders, executives, and customers
- Active U.S. Secret security clearance with ability to obtain and maintain Top Secret clearance
PREFERRED:
- Master's or PhD in Aerospace, Systems, or Electrical Engineering
- Hands-on flight test operations and mission system validation experience
- Direct experience integrating advanced sensors, autonomy, AI-enabled payloads, or guided weapons
- Background in model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and SysML tools
- Knowledge of current aircraft mission systems vendors and capabilities
- Active DoD Top Secret clearance
