The Human Machine Teaming (HMT) Group at Shield AI is hiring an Engineer II or Senior Engineer to join our HMT Experimentation capability. At Shield AI, HMT refers to the design, management, and assurance of the adaptive relationships between operators and Hivemind-enabled mission autonomy—not just an interface problem, or a function-allocation exercise.
Working alongside the HMT Experimentation Lead, who owns HMT experimentation, research, and assessment, you will assist in establishing the HMT Experimentation Lab and help run the applied research and development (R&D) program behind our HMT design decisions. You will test whether collaborative work requirement profiles—the adaptive relationships—hold in practice, and conduct robustness testing that establishes where teaming works, degrades, and approaches failure.
If rigorous applied HMT-specific experimentation on in-development and fielded autonomous systems is what you want, this is your opportunity to make a lasting impact.
What you'll do:
- Design and run HMT experiments that instantiate baseline and context-sensitive collaborative work requirements profiles and test whether these hold under varied conditions.
- Conduct robustness and resilience testing, perturbing, for instance, communications, sensor data, autonomy behavior, workload, and time pressure to find the limits of teaming.
- Characterize the context sensitivity of requirements profiles across environments, platforms, and operator populations.
- Extend operator-in-the-loop (OITL) and live-virtual-constructive (LVC) testing with HMT-specific experimentation.
- Define HMT-specific quantitative and qualitative measures of performance, effectiveness, and success, build assessment batteries for operator situation awareness, workload, decision making, calibration, reliance, and trust, prepare research protocols, and analyze human-machine system data.
- Translate findings into prioritized recommendations, revisions to requirements profiles, and feature requests for Development Leads, and co-create a shared HMT body of knowledge.
- Contribute evidence to the HMT maturity scale, risk assessment, and the Hivemind assurance case, and report results to engineering and customer audiences.
- Travel to company, test, demonstration, and customer locations to conduct project work (approximately 25%).
Required qualifications:
- Engineer II: typically requires a minimum of 2 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 0 years and a Master's degree; or a PhD without experience. Senior Engineer: typically requires a minimum of 3–5 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 2–4 years and a Master's degree; or 2 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
- A degree in human factors engineering or psychology, cognitive systems engineering, applied cognitive science, industrial and systems engineering, or a related field.
- Working knowledge of human machine teaming, human factors, and human performance theory and measurement, including cognitive task analysis and knowledge elicitation.
- Sound grasp of quasi-/experimental design, between- and within-participant designs, and control of extraneous confounds, experience conducting human participants research, proficiency with multivariate statistical analyses and tools (e.g., SPSS, R, Python), and ability to translate results into design recommendations.
- Experience in multidisciplinary settings, and ability to work in complex, ambiguous problem spaces and produce clear and structured artifacts.
- Strong teamwork and collaboration skills, and written and verbal communication skills.
Preferred qualifications:
- Hands-on experience with human machine teaming, MUM-T, human-robot interaction, or applied artificial intelligence, specifically in mission autonomy applications such as UAV Groups 1–5.
- Experience with developmental or operational test and evaluation, including OITL and LVC testing.
- Experience in scenario design, and with modeling and simulation tools and methods.
- Familiarity with trust and reliance measurement and experience with robustness, resilience, or degraded and off-nominal scenario testing.
- Experience with mission planning, C2, and battle management concepts, processes, and doctrine, and with ground control stations or HMIs.
- Familiarity with traceability methods, or with AI assurance frameworks.
- Willingness to use agentic AI to speed the path from design concept to fielded product.
- Prior work with military operators, pilots, or subject matter experts, or an aircrew background.
- U.S. DoD Secret clearance eligible, with the ability to obtain and maintain Top Secret, SCI, and/or SAP-level access. U.S. citizenship required.
Skills Required
- Bachelor’s degree in human factors engineering, psychology, cognitive systems engineering, applied cognitive science, industrial and systems engineering, or a related field
- Engineer II: at least 2 years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree, or 0 years with a master’s degree, or a PhD without experience
- Senior Engineer: 3–5 years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree, 2–4 years with a master’s degree, 2 years with a PhD, or equivalent experience
- Working knowledge of human-machine teaming, human factors, human performance theory and measurement, cognitive task analysis, and knowledge elicitation
- Experience with quasi-experimental and experimental design, participant studies, confound control, multivariate statistical analysis, and SPSS, R, or Python
- Ability to translate research results into design recommendations
- Experience working in multidisciplinary and complex, ambiguous environments
- Strong teamwork, collaboration, written communication, and verbal communication skills
- Hands-on experience with human-machine teaming, MUM-T, human-robot interaction, or applied AI in mission autonomy applications
- Experience with developmental or operational test and evaluation, including operator-in-the-loop and live-virtual-constructive testing
- Experience in scenario design and modeling and simulation methods
- Familiarity with trust and reliance measurement and degraded or off-nominal scenario testing
- Experience with mission planning, command and control, battle management, ground control stations, or HMIs
- Familiarity with traceability methods or AI assurance frameworks
- Prior work with military operators, pilots, or subject matter experts, or an aircrew background
- U.S. citizenship
- Eligible for a U.S. DoD Secret clearance and able to obtain and maintain Top Secret, SCI, and/or SAP access
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage includes medical, dental, vision, and mental-health support, with company materials describing excellent coverage. Feedback suggests these offerings are comprehensive and consistently highlighted across official and third-party benefit lists.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity is granted to all full-time hires, with RSU structures and tools like Carta Tax intended to improve understanding and tax timing. Feedback suggests this broad-based ownership approach is a notable component of total rewards.
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Parental & Family Support — Benefits include paid parental leave, fertility support, childcare benefits, family medical leave, and onsite resources such as a Mother's Room. Feedback suggests the family-oriented offerings are more expansive than basic coverage.
Shield AI Insights
What We Do
At Shield AI, 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 AI 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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