Staff Requirements Engineer (R3711)
Shield AI
San Diego, CA, USA · Oregon, USA · San Diego, CA, USA
Posted on Aug 19, 2025
Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense technology company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With offices in San Diego, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Boston, Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kyiv (Ukraine), and Melbourne (Australia), Shield AI’s technology actively supports U.S. and allied operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn,X, YouTubeand Instagram.
Job Description:
The Hivemind Product Team at Shield AI is seeking a highly skilled and detail-oriented Requirements Engineer to join our team.
The Hivemind Enterprise product is a software development kit (SDK) that enables scalable design, deployment, evaluation, and iteration of autonomy architectures for a wide range of robotic platforms. Hivemind Enterprise is a highly technical software product providing tools and user interfaces to support multiple user personae, ranging from AI developers to test engineers.
As a Requirements Engineer for Hivemind at Shield AI, you will be a key member of a multidisciplinary engineering team, working collaboratively with Product, technical individual contributors, and Test / Quality Assurance team members to translate product user stories into clear engineering requirements with testable metrics.
This role involves defining, modeling, and validating the Hivemind software system and its applications. It is hands-on and highly collaborative, requiring expertise in requirements formulation, traceability, and management, systems modeling, and knowledge of autonomous software pipelines.
What you'll do:
- Requirements development: Work cross-functionally with Product Managers, technical individual contributors, and Quality Assurance team members to translate high-level customer feature requests into clear, detailed technical requirements aligned with product vision and roadmap. Ensure requirements are actionable by engineering teams and testable through defined metrics and acceptance criteria.
- Requirements analysis: Identify dependencies, constraints, edge cases, and risks within proposed product or technical requirements. Ensure all requirements are feasible, testable, and aligned with business objectives and technical constraints.
- Documentation and modeling: Author clear and well-structured documentation, including acceptance criteria, traceability links, and system models. Use requirement management tools to maintain clarity, consistency, and traceability.
- Validation and verification: Collaborate with the Quality Assurance, Test, and development teams to validate that requirements are implemented correctly. Support test case development and define strategies for requirement traceability and verification coverage, ensuring that an implementation satisfies requirements.
- Requirements management: Track and manage requirements throughout the development lifecycle. Maintain version control, document requirement changes, and assess the impact of updates to ensure consistent alignment with the product’s technical and functional intent.
- Cross-functional alignment: Serve as the point of integration between customer intent and engineering execution. Facilitate communication across disciplines to reduce ambiguity, align expectations, and ensure clarity throughout design, development, and delivery. Participate in reviews and walkthroughs to confirm stakeholder alignment.
Required qualifications:
- Extensive experience generating product and test requirements for software products.
- Comprehensive understanding of robotics and autonomy concepts.
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Software Engineering, or a related field.
- 4+ years of experience in systems engineering or quality assurance roles supporting aerospace, defense, or other safety-critical complex hardware/software systems.
- Familiarity with systems engineering processes, V-model development, and lifecycle traceability.
- Proficiency in reading and interpreting engineering drawings, schematics, and interface definitions.
- Comfortable working in a Linux development environment.
- Strong organizational, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Preferred qualifications:
- Working knowledge of requirements management tools such as DOORS, Jama, or Jira.
- Experience in systems modeling using Cameo Systems Modeler and SysML.
- Software development experience in modern C++ (C++17 or later) and/or Python.
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Full-time regular employee offer package:
Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
Temporary employee offer package:
Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)
Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.
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Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.