Staff Engineer, Human Machine Interface

About the role

Shield AI is seeking a Staff Engineer to lead the development of operator‑facing software for autonomous uncrewed systems. This hands‑on technical leadership role spans HMI, mission systems, and platform integration, delivering mission‑critical tools for operators.

Key responsibilities

• Define technical direction and architecture for HMI across Hivemind Solutions products.
• Design and deliver applications for mission planning, command‑and‑control, vehicle supervision, system health monitoring, and post‑mission debrief.
• Build map‑centric, data‑rich interfaces that convey vehicle state, autonomy intent, alerts, and degraded conditions.
• Develop front‑end solutions using React/TypeScript and native desktop frameworks such as Qt/QML.
• Design robust data flows between front‑ends, C++ services, backend systems, autonomy software, telemetry, and video sources.
• Lead design reviews, code reviews, and engineering practices to ensure quality, performance, and release readiness.
• Support simulation, operator‑in‑the‑loop testing, flight‑test integration, field activities, and customer demonstrations.
• Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership across frontend and mission‑system software.

Required profile

• Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Robotics, Mechatronics or related field.
• Significant experience delivering complex user‑facing software, preferably at staff or senior technical level.
• Strong C++ fundamentals and experience with production native software or performance‑sensitive backend services.
• Ability to obtain and maintain an Australian Government security clearance (Australian citizenship required).

Required skills

• Modern HMI/frontend stacks: React, TypeScript, HTML/CSS, Qt/QML.
• Proficient C++ development.
• Design and integration of APIs, distributed systems, asynchronous data flows, messaging, and client/server architectures.
• Experience with real‑time, high‑rate data interfaces and multimedia pipelines (RTSP, WebRTC, GStreamer, H.264/H.265, GPU‑accelerated visualization).
• Familiarity with MAVLink, ROS/ROS 2, DDS, REST, WebSockets, STANAG 4586.