Team Lead, Software Test & Quality Assurance

• Responsibilities:
• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Software Test & Automation Engineers and Quality Assurance Engineers, including hiring, onboarding, goal setting, performance feedback, and career development.
• Plan and prioritise test work across Hivemind Vision and Hivemind Solutions programs, balancing competing schedules and allocating people where they are most needed.
• Identify risks, delays, and resourcing constraints early and communicate them clearly to the Senior Manager, Engineering and to program stakeholders.
• Build a team culture of technical rigour, ownership, continuous improvement, and psychological safety. Test execution and release assurance ·
• Implement the Australian software test strategy shaped and endorsed by key stakeholders and leadership across unit, integration, simulation, SIL, HIL, VIL, and flight-test environments.
• Tailor test approaches to the needs of each team: perception, computer vision, and imagery validation for Hivemind Vision, and autonomy integration and platform validation for Hivemind Solutions.
• Own the software release process, including release readiness criteria, test evidence, approval matrices, and go / no-go recommendations.
• Work with Systems Engineering to maintain traceability from requirements and interface control documents (ICDs) through test cases to verification results.
• Prepare test readiness and verification evidence for formal technical reviews (e.g., TRR), customer acceptance, and airworthiness submissions.
• Develop and report software quality metrics, dashboards, and readiness assessments that give engineering and program leadership objective evidence of software maturity. Technical direction
• Set the technical direction for automated test frameworks, test harnesses, and validation tooling, with Python-based automation at the core.
• Drive integration of automated regression, integration, functional, and performance testing into CI/CD pipelines to enable continuous validation and rapid developer feedback and coordinate cross functionally with key stakeholders including DevOps.
• Guide the development of repeatable perception test approaches, including curated test datasets, ground-truth comparison, and performance benchmarking for computer vision and imaging-sensor capabilities.
• Guide the build-out and maintenance of test environments, including hardware setup, device flashing, SIL/HIL rigs, and cross-platform (Windows and Linux) environments.
• Lead or support cross-functional root cause investigations into defects and system integration issues, and make sure lessons learned feed back into process and test coverage.
• Coordinate operational and integration testing on flights in and around Melbourne with the flight test team. Process and governance
• Apply and help mature the Australian Engineering Management System (EMS) for software test and release, working with Quality Process Engineering on configuration management, defect management, and nonconformance and corrective action.
• Maintain a common, right-sized test and QA baseline across Hivemind Vision and Hivemind Solutions, while respecting the different needs of each team's products and customers.
• Contribute software test and QA content to proposals, statements of work, and test plans.
• Partner with Shield AI test and quality teams globally to share tooling, methods, and best practice.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Aerospace, Electrical, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent overseas qualification).
• 8+ years developing software test, verification, automation, validation, or quality assurance solutions for robotics, autonomy, aerospace, embedded, or other complex distributed systems.
• 2 + years leading engineers, either as a people manager or a technical lead with responsibility for planning, prioritization, and mentoring.
• Demonstrated experience implementing test strategy across multiple products or programs and owning software release or acceptance recommendations.
• Strong proficiency in Python for automation, testing, and data analysis, and experience architecting automated test frameworks or validation infrastructure.
• Experience validating software in simulation, SIL, HIL, and/or representative hardware or flight-test environments.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and continuous validation practices.
• Experience with Linux and Windows environments and with setting up and managing test environments.
• Experience with requirements and test management tools (e.g., Testrail, Cameo, DOORS, Polarion, Jira) and fault tracking systems.
• Strong understanding of software verification, regression testing, traceability, and quality assurance methodologies.
• Experience working in Agile software development environments.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present test evidence and release recommendations to senior stakeholders and customers.
• Ability to obtain an Australian NV1 security clearance
• Ability to comply with export-control (e.g., ITAR, EAR, and the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012), security, safety, and customer-site requirements. Preferred qualifications:
• Experience testing computer vision, perception, or imaging-sensor systems, including dataset-driven and metrics-based evaluation.
• Experience with flight control systems such as ArduPilot or PX4.
• Experience with unmanned aerial systems (fixed-wing, quadrotor, or both).
• Experience testing and validating real-time embedded software systems.
• Background in autonomy, robotics, or aerospace systems, including flight controllers, radios, and communications systems.
• Experience producing evidence for formal technical reviews, customer acceptance, or airworthiness approval.
• Familiarity with software assurance or airworthiness frameworks (e.g., DO-178C, DEF(AUST) 5679, ASDEFCON software requirements) or quality management systems (AS9100 or ISO 9001).
• ISTQB accreditation (Advanced or Test Manager level highly regarded).

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.

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 https://shield.ai/.

Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/shield-ai, X https://x.com/shieldaitech, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shield_ai, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Shield_AI.