Director, Systems Engineering & Architecture - Hivemind Enterprise

Shield AI is seeking a Director of Systems Engineering & Architecture (SE&A) for its Hivemind Enterprise organization. The role involves overseeing Systems Engineering, System Architecture, Cybersecurity Engineering, and Safety/Airworthiness Engineering to develop dependable, software-intensive autonomous systems.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the SE&A team, establishing clear responsibilities, technical standards, and cross-functional partnerships.
• Define the operating model for SE&A, prioritizing demands, allocating resources, and establishing decision rights.
• Guide requirements development, system modeling, architectural trade studies, and interface definition.
• Drive verification and validation planning, establishing system-level verification strategies and measurable acceptance criteria.
• Integrate systems engineering and architecture into iterative planning, design, implementation, testing, and sustainment.
• Ensure cybersecurity, safety, and airworthiness considerations shape requirements, architecture, development, and verification.
• Lead risk-based design reviews, resolve technical issues, and provide evidence-based readiness recommendations.
• Establish practical methods, models, and workflows to connect requirements, architecture, implementation, and evidence.

Requirements:

• At least 15 years of applied systems engineering experience with complex, multidisciplinary systems.
• Demonstrated success leading engineering teams and senior technical talent.
• Deep experience with requirements development and management, including decomposition, allocation, and traceability.
• Ability to develop system architectures and use system models to analyze structure, behavior, and interfaces.
• Experience defining verification methods, measurable acceptance criteria, and validation scenarios.
• Experience applying systems engineering within software development lifecycles, including iterative development and continuous integration.
• Demonstrated ability to improve engineering maturity in an iterative development environment.
• Ability to lead specialists across cybersecurity, safety, and airworthiness disciplines.
• Experience with autonomy software, AI-enabled systems, or autonomy development platforms and tools.
• A Degree in a relevant engineering or computer science discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to Have:

• Experience applying model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and scaling engineering practices.
• Familiarity with SysML and Cameo or similar system modeling tools.
• Experience delivering aerospace or defense systems with government customers.
• Practical experience with safety-critical development, hazard analysis, and airworthiness planning.
• Experience translating threat assessments and security obligations into requirements and architectural controls.