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Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company developing intelligent autonomy systems, aircraft platforms, and simulation technologies to protect service members and civilians. The company operates globally with offices across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.
You will serve as a Staff Engineer in the Modelling and Simulation team, responsible for architecting and advancing the simulation framework that underpins autonomy validation and aircraft performance evaluation. This is a technical leadership role combining hands-on engineering with mentorship and strategic direction-setting.
Key responsibilities include:
- Growing the simulation ecosystem by integrating existing simulators and standards, and building new ones where identified needs exist
- Building reusable Monte Carlo infrastructure for parameterization, execution, reproducibility, and large-scale simulation campaign result collection
- Developing multithreaded and multi-process simulation capabilities, addressing synchronization, timing, state exchange, and performance optimization
- Partnering with autonomy, guidance/navigation/control (GNC), and real-time assurance (RTA) engineers, plus field operators, to translate evaluation requirements into simulation interfaces and infrastructure
- Supporting platform-specific performance validation using physics models (6DoF, 3DoF, etc.)
- Setting technical direction, leading design reviews, and mentoring engineers in simulation architecture and production software development
This role requires deep expertise in simulation architecture, real-time systems, and aircraft dynamics, combined with the ability to influence technical strategy and develop junior engineers.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Minimum 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 9 years with a Master's degree; or 7 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience
- Strong proficiency in C++ with demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and maintaining production performance-critical software
- Demonstrated experience building and running multithreaded/multiprocess real-time simulations involving aircraft dynamics
- Experience both developing Monte Carlo infrastructure and using it to design, execute, and analyze simulation campaigns
- Demonstrated ability to drive technical decisions, mentor engineers, and collaborate across software and domain engineering teams
- Experience developing software/simulation under a defined verification and validation (V&V) lifecycle
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience supporting airworthiness certification efforts, including developing simulation evidence for verification, validation, and safety assessment (e.g., DO-178C, MIL-HDBK-516C)
- Strong Python skills for simulation tooling, experiment automation, and analysis
- Experience with distributed simulation and model interoperability standards such as HLA, DIS, and FMI/FMU
- Experience with industry-standard simulation tools such as JSBSim, FlightGear, X-Plane, Gazebo, Isaac Sim, or Simulink, or equivalent environments
- Experience with closed-loop autonomy simulation, including sensor inputs and interfaces between autonomy and the simulated environment
- Experience with uncertainty modeling, statistical analysis, and scenario coverage for Monte Carlo evaluation
- Testing and operating safety-critical software (e.g., DO-178C)
