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Shield AI is seeking a Senior Systems Engineer to apply systems engineering principles to the development and integration of autonomous systems for defense applications. In this role, you will translate operational needs, mission objectives, and customer requirements into clear system, subsystem, software, and autonomy requirements. You'll develop and maintain system architectures, functional decompositions, interface definitions, Interface Control Documents, requirements traceability matrices, and verification strategies.
You will work closely with autonomy, software, guidance, navigation and control, avionics, hardware, test, and platform engineering teams to ensure successful system integration. A key responsibility is defining and managing interfaces between Hivemind Autonomy, vehicle systems, mission systems, sensors, communications, payloads, and external systems. You'll maintain a strong understanding of the underlying autonomy and software architecture, including how system-level requirements translate into software behavior and implementation.
The role involves developing software, prototypes, analysis tools, test infrastructure, and engineering utilities using C++ and Python to solve integration and system-level engineering problems. You'll use code, simulation, logs, telemetry, and other engineering data to investigate system behavior, diagnose failures, validate assumptions, and support technical decision-making. You'll lead and support system integration activities across simulation, software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, ground test, and flight test environments.
Required qualifications include a BS or MS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Robotics, or a related technical discipline. You need 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 in C++ and Python is essential. Experience with autonomous or robotic systems, including familiarity with perception, planning, estimation, guidance, navigation, controls, or mission autonomy is required. You must have a strong understanding of systems engineering principles and their application to complex defense systems, plus experience developing and managing system and subsystem requirements, including decomposition, allocation, traceability, and verification.
