Shield AI
Senior Staff Engineer, Weapons Integration - Ranger (R6323)
$210K–$320K
Seattle, Washington · On-site · Senior Staff · Full-time · Posted Oct 18, 2026
- Experience
- 10 or more years of relevant aerospace or defense experience, including at least 5 years developing and integrating weapons or complex aircraft mission systems.
- Education
- Bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
About the job
Owns the architecture, development, integration, and verification of weapons mission-critical subsystems for an autonomous aircraft, from concept through flight test and fielding.
What you'll do
- Define mission-system architectures, requirements, performance budgets, interface definitions, and verification criteria.
- Lead weapons-integration trade studies and guide subsystem integration, testing, compliance, and resolution of technical issues.
- Lead technical reviews and readiness assessments, align stakeholders, and mentor engineers.
What they ask for
- Bachelor’s degree in a related technical discipline and relevant aerospace or defense experience, including weapons or complex aircraft mission systems integration.
- Technical ownership of mission-system architectures spanning mission computing, data storage, avionics, payloads, and communications, including line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight systems.
- Strong systems engineering and product development knowledge, including Modular Open Systems Approach principles and frameworks such as Open Mission Systems.
- Experience leading multidisciplinary teams and suppliers through integration, test, and fielding; active U.S. Secret clearance and ability to obtain and maintain Top Secret clearance.
Nice to have
- Master’s or PhD in Aerospace, Systems, or Electrical Engineering; hands-on flight-test and mission-system validation experience.
- Experience with advanced sensors, autonomy, AI-enabled payloads, or guided weapons; MBSE and SysML tools; active DoD Top Secret clearance.
Pay
USD 210,000–320,000 per year (base salary)
Tools
Open Mission Systems, Government Reference Architectures, DO 178C, DO 254, MBSE, SysML
AI focus
Preferred experience includes integrating autonomy or AI-enabled payloads.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative