We’re looking for an experienced Staff Engineer, Human Machine Interface to join our Hivemind Solutions team and lead the development of operator-facing software for autonomous uncrewed systems.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role spanning HMI, mission systems, and autonomous-platform integration. You will help build the ground-control, mission-planning, command-and-control, and debrief tools through which operators understand, supervise, and control complex autonomous systems.
You will bring strong frontend engineering experience across modern web and/or desktop technologies, supported by practical C++ and backend or distributed-systems foundations. You will work closely with autonomy, systems, flight-test, product, and operational teams to turn sophisticated platform capabilities into clear, responsive, and mission-effective operator experiences.
What you'll do:
- Lead technical direction and architecture for HMI capabilities across Hivemind Solutions products.
- Design and deliver applications for mission planning, command and control, vehicle and payload supervision, system health, and post-mission debrief.
- Build map-centric and data-rich interfaces that clearly convey vehicle state, autonomy intent, mission status, constraints, alerts, and degraded conditions.
- Develop HMI using appropriate frontend technologies, including web frameworks such as React and TypeScript, and native desktop frameworks such as Qt/QML where appropriate.
- Design robust data flows and interfaces between frontends, C++ services, backend systems, autonomy software, vehicle interfaces, simulation, payloads, telemetry, and video sources.
- Define and negotiate APIs, data models, schemas, interface contracts, and ICDs with internal teams and external partners.
- Lead technical design reviews, code reviews, architecture decisions, and engineering practices for quality, performance, maintainability, and release readiness.
- Support simulation, operator-in-the-loop testing, system integration, flight test, field activity, and customer demonstrations.
- Debug complex HMI and mission-system issues spanning application performance, memory use, data freshness, networking, messaging, video, and vehicle integration.
- Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership across frontend, HMI, and mission-system software.
Required qualifications:
- A tertiary qualification in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Robotics, Mechatronics, or a related discipline;
- Significant professional experience delivering complex user-facing software, ideally as a staff, principal, lead, or senior technical engineer.
- Strong experience with one or more modern HMI/frontend technology stacks, such as React, TypeScript, HTML/CSS, Qt/QML, or comparable web and desktop frameworks.
- Strong C++ fundamentals and experience contributing to production native software, backend services, integrations, or performance-sensitive systems.
- Experience with APIs, distributed systems, asynchronous data flows, messaging, service integration, data models, and client/server architectures.
- Experience developing interfaces that consume real-time, operationally significant, or high-rate data.
- Demonstrated experience owning software capabilities from architecture through integration, testing, deployment, and operational support.
- Strong debugging, profiling, technical communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Experience mentoring engineers and leading technical decisions.
- Ability to obtain and maintain an Australian Government security clearance.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience with uncrewed systems, aviation, robotics, autonomy, ground control stations, mission management, command and control, defence systems, or other mission-critical technology.
- Experience with geospatial or map-based applications, telemetry visualisation, sensor or payload control, live video, or mission replay/debrief tools.
- Familiarity with any of MAVLink, ROS/ROS 2, DDS, REST, WebSockets, STANAG 4586, or related mission-system technologies.
- Experience with real-time, edge, bandwidth-constrained, disconnected, or degraded-network environments.
- Familiarity with RTSP, WebRTC, GStreamer, H.264/H.265, GPU-accelerated visualisation, or multimedia pipelines.
- Experience with human factors, operator workflows, autonomy supervision, alerting, mode awareness, usability testing, or human-autonomy teaming.
- Experience supporting field integration, flight test, range activity, customer demonstrations, or operational troubleshooting.
- Defence industry experience and/or an existing Australian Government security clearance.
Skills Required
- Tertiary qualification in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Robotics, Mechatronics, or a related discipline
- Significant professional experience delivering complex user-facing software
- Experience with modern HMI or frontend technology stacks such as React, TypeScript, HTML/CSS, Qt/QML, or comparable frameworks
- Strong C++ fundamentals and experience contributing to production native software, backend services, integrations, or performance-sensitive systems
- Experience with APIs, distributed systems, asynchronous data flows, messaging, service integration, data models, and client/server architectures
- Experience developing interfaces that consume real-time, operationally significant, or high-rate data
- Experience owning software capabilities from architecture through integration, testing, deployment, and operational support
- Strong debugging, profiling, technical communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills
- Experience mentoring engineers and leading technical decisions
- Ability to obtain and maintain an Australian Government security clearance
- Experience with uncrewed systems, aviation, robotics, autonomy, ground control stations, mission management, command and control, defence systems, or other mission-critical technology
- Experience with geospatial or map-based applications, telemetry visualisation, sensor or payload control, live video, or mission replay/debrief tools
- Familiarity with MAVLink, ROS/ROS 2, DDS, REST, WebSockets, STANAG 4586, or related mission-system technologies
- Experience with real-time, edge, bandwidth-constrained, disconnected, or degraded-network environments
- Familiarity with RTSP, WebRTC, GStreamer, H.264/H.265, GPU-accelerated visualisation, or multimedia pipelines
- Experience with human factors, operator workflows, autonomy supervision, alerting, mode awareness, usability testing, or human-autonomy teaming
- Experience supporting field integration, flight test, range activity, customer demonstrations, or operational troubleshooting
- Defence industry experience and/or an existing Australian Government security clearance
What the Team is Saying
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.
Gallery
%203.jpg)
Shield AI Teams
.jpg)
Shield AI Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
