Principal Engineer, Systems (R5048)
Shield AI
San Diego, CA, USA
USD 200k-300k / year + Equity
Posted on May 20, 2026
Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed deep-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and the 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:
Shield AI’s Hivemind Platform organization is seeking a Principal Systems Engineer to lead and scale systems engineering excellence across our software-intensive, autonomy-driven platform. This role sits within the Systems Engineering, Integration, and Test (SEIT) organization and is responsible for advancing systems engineering discipline, rigor, and cross-functional alignment across the full lifecycle, from requirements definition through architecture, verification, and assurance.
This individual will play a critical role in shaping how complex autonomous system development capabilities are specified, architected, and validated, with a strong emphasis on model-based systems engineering (MBSE), requirements traceability, and integration of system assurance (including safety) into system design.
What You’ll Do:
- Systems Engineering Discipline Leadership: Drive the adoption and enforcement of systems engineering best practices across the organization, serving as a technical authority and trusted partner to engineering leadership.
- Requirements Management & Traceability: Lead the development of structured, testable, and fully traceable system requirements, ensuring end-to-end linkage across architecture, verification, and implementation.
- Architecture Definition: Define and maintain system architectures using MBSE methodologies and tools (e.g., Cameo), promoting model-centric engineering for system understanding and decision-making.
- Verification & Validation Planning: Establish comprehensive, executable verification strategies aligned with system requirements and operational use cases, supporting integration and test efforts.
- System Assurance Integration: Integrate system safety and security assurance considerations into requirements, architecture, and verification to support mission assurance and compliance objectives.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with software architects, product teams, test engineers, and engineering leadership to align system-level decisions/execution across the organization and bridge between SEIT and the broader engineering organization.
Key Outcomes:
- End-to-End Requirements Traceability Established: System requirements are consistently structured, testable, and fully traceable across architecture, implementation, and verification artifacts.
- MBSE Adoption at Scale: Model-based systems engineering is broadly adopted, with system architecture and interfaces defined and maintained in a shared, authoritative model.
- System Assurance Integrated Early: System safety and assurance considerations are embedded in requirements and architecture upfront, reducing late-stage risk and rework.
- Cross-Functional System Alignment Achieved: Software, product, and Integration & Test teams operate with a clear, shared understanding of system architecture, interfaces, and constraints.
- Systems Engineering Rigor and Process Maturity Improved: Standardized processes, tools, and artifacts are in place and consistently used across teams, improving quality, predictability, and scalability.
Required Qualifications:
- 15+ years in Systems Engineering, Architecture, or technical leadership roles
- Experience in defense or aerospace, ideally with software-intensive unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)
- Strong background in traceable requirements development, system architecture and interface definition, and V&V planning
- Hands-on experience with MBSE tools (Cameo Systems Modeler or equivalent) and SysML
- Proven ability to lead engineering discipline across teams and influence technical direction
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering or related field
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience integrating system safety and assurance practices into engineering workflows
- Familiarity with certification standards such as MIL-HDBK-516C and CMMC/NIST SP 800-53
- Advanced degree in engineering or related field
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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.
200000 - 300000 USD a year