Put the power of autonomy in human hands. At Shield AI, we build intelligent systems that protect service members and civilians. Our Hivemind software enables aircraft and other uncrewed systems to make decisions and execute missions, even when GPS and communications are unavailable. Your challenge is to make that complex capability clear, intuitive and actionable for the people operating it.

As a Staff Engineer, Human Machine Interface in our Hivemind Solutions team, you’ll lead the architecture and hands-on development of software that connects operators with autonomous systems. From planning missions and supervising aircraft to understanding decisions and replaying what happened, you’ll build the interfaces through which people command, understand and trust autonomy.

The engineering problems go well beyond the screen: making sense of live telemetry, visualising autonomy intent, and keeping operators informed when conditions change or connectivity degrades. You’ll combine contemporary web or desktop technologies with C++ and backend or distributed systems expertise to deliver responsive, reliable mission software.

Working alongside autonomy, systems, flight-test, product and operational teams, you’ll take ideas from architecture through integration and into flight testing, shaping how humans and autonomous aircraft work together in the real world.

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.

📌 Staff Engineer, Human Machine Interface (Melbourne)
🏢 SHIELD
📍 Melbourne