What You'll Do:
- Lead, mentor, and grow a team of specialized C++ and Python simulation engineers. Set technical direction, conduct performance reviews, and foster high engineering rigor.
- Collaborate directly with HMP engineering and product leadership to drive HMS program requirements into the Hivemind Simulation Framework (HMSF), ensuring HMSF accommodates complex DoD program needs, custom sensors, and multi-domain environments.
- Architect and lay out the phased migration roadmap from HMSSimBlocks to HMSF, ensuring uninterrupted operational support for active programs using HMSSimBlocks while guiding teams toward HMSF adoption.
- Oversee the design and maintenance of baseline simulation adapters, plugins, and interfaces for NGTS, AFSIM, Aechelon, HMSSimBlocks, and HMSF.
- Align simulation frameworks with defense interface standards (e.g., GRID/JSE, CIGI, CSF, DDS), ensuring seamless interoperability across DoD-recognized threat and visual simulators.
- Partner cross-functionally with HMS program leads, integration teams, and autonomy teams to ensure simulation environments accurately support hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) and software-in-the-loop (SIL) testing needs.
- Champion developer enablement by providing standardized simulation templates, documentation, and framework support to downstream engineering teams.
Required Qualifications:
- Typically requires a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or related technical discipline and 7+ years of related experience (or 5+ years with a Master’s, or equivalent practical experience), including experience in technical leadership, team lead, or engineering management.
- Deep software engineering background in C++ and Python within Linux environments.
- Practical experience with modeling and simulation frameworks (such as AFSIM, NGTS, SimBlocks/HMSF, or similar) and distributed simulation middleware (DDS, DIS/HLA).
- Proven ability to partner with platform/product teams (e.g., HMP) to influence external product roadmaps and drive program requirements upstream.
- Demonstrated experience managing software platform migrations while maintaining operational stability for legacy systems.
- Familiarity with defense simulation interface standards (GRID/JSE, CIGI, CSF) and network protocols (UDP/TCP).
- Ability to obtain and maintain an active U.S. SECRET security clearance (U.S. citizenship required).
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Skills Required
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline, plus 7+ years of related experience; alternatively, 5+ years with a Master’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
- Experience in technical leadership, team leadership, or engineering management.
- Deep software engineering experience with C++ and Python in Linux environments.
- Practical experience with modeling and simulation frameworks such as AFSIM, NGTS, SimBlocks, HMSF, or similar.
- Experience with distributed simulation middleware, including DDS, DIS, or HLA.
- Ability to partner with platform and product teams to influence product roadmaps and drive program requirements upstream.
- Experience managing software platform migrations while maintaining operational stability for legacy systems.
- Familiarity with defense simulation interface standards including GRID/JSE, CIGI, and CSF.
- Familiarity with UDP and TCP network protocols.
- Ability to obtain and maintain an active U.S. SECRET security clearance.
- U.S. citizenship.
What the Team is Saying
What We Do
At Shield you won't wait years to see your work reach the field. You'll build hardware and software that operates in the real world right now, in the hands of the people who depend on it. Hivemind, our AI pilot, has been flying since 2018. It has flown more than 30 platforms, including an F-16, and it now sits under a U.S. Air Force production contract for Collaborative Combat Aircraft. When you write code or shape a system here, you contribute to technology with a proven flight record and a clear production future. V-BAT flies intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions with an operational record that stretches from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific. It delivers eyes where they matter most, in the most demanding conditions on earth. The teams behind it watch their work get tested where the stakes are real. X-BAT takes its first flight this year. It's an AI-piloted fighter that needs no runway, built to operate where traditional aircraft can't. Join now and you help shape a program at its earliest, most formative stage. That's the kind of ground-floor work that defines a career. Do the most impactful work of your life, on problems that matter. Autonomy at this level asks a lot of you. You'll take on problems in perception, planning, and control that few teams anywhere are equipped to solve. You'll work across disciplines, from aerospace and robotics to machine learning and systems engineering, alongside people who hold themselves to an exacting standard and expect the same from you. Our mission is clear: protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. That purpose runs through every decision, every design review, and every deployment. It's why the work here carries a weight you can feel. Ready to join our mission? Explore our open roles and find where you fit.
Why Work With Us
Founded in 2015 by a former Navy SEAL, Shield builds AI pilots and uncrewed aircraft. Veterans aren't an afterthought here, they're at every level. It's why the work carries weight: AI pilots and uncrewed aircraft flying real missions, from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific, protecting service members and civilians.
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Shield Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
