Staff Engineer

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. 

Job Description:

We are seeking a GCS / Communications Systems Engineer to lead the development, integration, and validation of ground control station and communication architectures supporting advanced military aircraft and autonomous systems. This role directly impacts mission effectiveness, command and control reliability, platform connectivity, and operational resiliency by ensuring robust communication between air, ground, and distributed mission systems.

The engineer will define system behaviors, operational workflows, and communication architectures across the full lifecycle, from concept development through flight and operational test. This role plays a critical part in reducing integration risk, improving network resiliency, and accelerating deployment of mission-critical communication capabilities.

What you'll do:

• Define GCS and communication system behaviors, operational workflows, and activity diagrams to ensure reliable command, control, telemetry, payload, and mission data exchange
• Develop and integrate communication architectures including RF links, SATCOM, LOS/BLOS datalinks, networking infrastructure, antennas, encryption devices, and mission control interfaces
• Lead cross-functional integration between avionics, mission systems, networking, cybersecurity, software, and test teams to improve system interoperability and reduce integration risk
• Develop and validate interface definitions, network architectures, link budgets, and communication performance requirements for airborne and ground-based systems
• Support lab, field, and flight test activities to troubleshoot communication issues, validate network performance, and improve operational resiliency and mission readiness

Required qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related technical field