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. Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI's technology actively supports operations worldwide. The Special Projects team at Shield AI is an elite force within the office of the CTO. It consists of a group of very senior (L5-L8) and highly experienced software engineering experts from diverse fields (aerospace, robotics, cloud infrastructure, game development, interactive media design, ...). Individuals within this team make direct and at times forward-sprinting contributions to all three pillars of Hivemind, Shield AI's software ecosystem for developing and deploying resilient intelligent teaming for aircrafts. EdgeOS (C++ based high-performance middleware for autonomy development), Pilot (autonomy for the edge built atop EdgeOS; a models-based, modular and open architecture C++ codebase), Forge (Shield AI's AI Factory for the design, development, and testing of Hivemind Edge systems; a service-oriented architecture leveraged through an SDK, CLI, and web portal; a Go, Python, Typescript codebase), Commander (Software and hardware to support rich human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop interactions with the Hivemind; a C++-based back-end for interaction with Pilot; and a web-application UI for mission planning, command and control by operators implemented in a Typescript/React codebase).

The Special Projects team is chartered to operate effectively within ambiguity. While this team does not own any software products,



it tactically and strategically impacts the development of all foundational Hivemind products and leverages those technologies to rapidly deliver low-TRL solutions. This work happens shoulder-to-shoulder with the product teams in some cases, and in a forward-sprinting manner within the Special Projects team in other cases. The Special Projects team also functions as a pipeline for product and solution engineering teams across the organization. Individuals who enter the Special Projects team rapidly gain depth and breadth in their understanding of the Hivemind software ecosystem. Design and build the user experience for agentic AI products across the office of the CTO: an enterprise knowledge assistant (Brain), an agent-driven engineering platform (Springboard), and enterprise AI/data applications.

Ship working React/TypeScript implementations, not mockups — then land them in production with the product teams.

Design the core interaction patterns of agentic software: streaming responses, citations and provenance, multi-modal input, artifact sharing, and human-in-the-loop review and approval surfaces.

Design interfaces for foundation-model based autonomy architectures and model lifecycle tooling: evaluation dashboards, trace inspection, observability, and verification surfaces.





define personae and translate findings into design decisions.

Establish reusable design patterns and a component vocabulary for AI applications across the organization.

12+ years designing and building production software interfaces, with end-to-end ownership from research through shipped product.

Expert-level React/TypeScript; you write production-quality front-end code, not just prototypes.

Portfolio of shipped tools or applications demonstrating strong interaction design and visual craft.

Hands-on experience designing LLM-powered experiences: streaming, progressive rendering, loading states, context and conversation management.

Deep knowledge of client and UI state management, the DOM, browser APIs, WebSockets, and Server-Sent Events.

Experience running user research and usability testing, and acting on the results.

Strong software hygiene: Git, code review, testing, CI/CD.

Experience with Linux, Docker, and a major cloud platform (Azure, GCP, AWS).

Data visualization experience (D3, WebGL, dashboards); Experience building or maintaining a design system.

Experience with Electron (or similar).

Experience with user experience design for video games or interactive media.

Comfort reading C++ and/or Python and/or Go.

$Senior staff: $Full-time regular employee offer package:

Temporary employee offer package:

Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

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📌 Product Designer (Temporary Contract) (Madrid)
🏢 shieldai
📍 Madrid