Staff Engineer, System Test Network (R6030)

Shield AI · Washington, D.C.

  • Senior
  • Full-time
  • $144,400 – $216,000
  • Posted 2026-09-24
  • Confirmed live on 25 September 2026

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Job description

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and 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. 

What You'll Do:
• Design, build, configure, and maintain scalable network architectures for HIL laboratories, integration environments, simulation systems, and shared test infrastructure across multiple programs

• Define and manage Layer 2 and Layer 3 configurations, including addressing, VLANs, routing, multicast, quality of service, access controls, redundancy, and time-synchronization services

• Develop and maintain networking software, configuration-as-code, automation tools, and validation utilities that make lab network deployment repeatable, reviewable, and recoverable

• Integrate switches, routers, firewalls, servers, real-time compute, simulators, flight computers, sensors, radios, and other program hardware into representative HIL and program network environments, including mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) using Persistent Systems MPU5/Wave Relay, Silvus StreamCaster, and comparable tactical and SDR platforms

• Develop and execute network test plans that measure connectivity, interoperability, throughput, latency, jitter, packet loss, multicast behavior, failover, and performance under load

• Build network observability capabilities using packet capture, device telemetry, logs, metrics, alerts, dashboards, and automated health checks to identify issues before they disrupt testing

• Reproduce, isolate, and resolve complex network and distributed-system issues using Wireshark, tcpdump, traffic generators, device diagnostics, application logs, and controlled experiments

• Partner with Solutions & Integration teams to reproduce deployed networking issues, translate customer and operational feedback into representative HIL network configurations and tests, and provide second-line network support for customer demonstrations, exercises, and evaluations

• Maintain authoritative network baselines, IP address assignments, hardware inventories, cable and port maps, architecture diagrams, interface-control documentation, and change records

• Integrate network configuration and test automation into source-control and CI/CD workflows, including peer review, automated verification, deployment, rollback, and auditability

• Evaluate network equipment and technologies, support capacity planning and procurement, standardize reusable solutions, and provide technical guidance to lab users and program teams

Required Qualifications:
• Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 3 years with a Master's degree; or equivalent practical experience in network engineering, systems integration, test infrastructure, or software development.

• Strong knowledge of Ethernet and TCP/IP networking, including switching, routing, subnetting, VLANs, multicast, DNS, DHCP, network address translation, quality of service, and common transport protocols.

• Hands-on experience configuring and troubleshooting managed switches, routers, firewalls, Linux hosts, and networked computing systems in laboratory, development, or production environments.

• Proficiency in Python or a comparable language for network automation, configuration generation, API integration, test development, data processing, or infrastructure tooling.

• Experience developing and executing structured network or system tests using tools such as Wireshark, tcpdump, iperf, traffic generators, device telemetry, and application logs.

• Experience supporting complex HIL, integration-lab, distributed-system, or test-infrastructure environments with shared resources and multiple engineering users.

• Experience with source control, configuration management, technical documentation, network diagrams, issue tracking, and disciplined change-control practices.

• Strong analytical, communication, and customer-service skills, with the ability to prioritize cross-program needs, troubleshoot under schedule pressure, and support occasional off-hours lab activities.

• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.

Preferred Qualifications:
• Experience supporting aerospace, defense, robotics, autonomous systems, avionics, flight-test, or other mission-critical engineering programs.

• Experience with HIL, SIL, or VIL test environments, real-time simulation, flight computers, sensors, vehicle networks, or aircraft integration laboratories.

• Advanced experience with multicast routing, precision time protocol, network timing, deterministic networking, traffic shaping, redundancy, or high-availability design.

• Experi

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