Systems Engineer – Product Sustainment

Work with cutting edge technology, making the world a safer and more secure place. DroneShield (ASX:DRO) offers an opportunity to solve some of the world's most challenging technical problems in Electronic Warfare, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, RF sensing, Sensor Fusion and distributed systems. Working with high profile customers across militaries, government agencies, airports, critical infrastructure, law enforcement and many others.

With one of the largest listed defence company market capitalisations in Australia and having raised approximately $250m in 2024 alone, DroneShield is undergoing hypergrowth stage, fuelled by rapidly increasing use of drones for nefarious applications, from battlefield, to terrorism, to contraband delivery and commercial espionage.

This role is in the DroneShield Sydney headquarters in Sydney CBD. There are approximately 350 staff based in the 4,000sqm facility today, scheduled to grow to approximately 400 staff by end of 2025. Overseas on the ground presence includes USA, Denmark, Mexico, and UAE, as well as distributors in over 70 countries globally.

About the role

DroneShield is seeking a Systems Engineer with a strong background in product sustainment across the engineering lifecycle to join our cutting-edge product development team in Sydney. Reporting to the Systems Engineering Team Lead, this position offers the opportunity to play a pivotal role in enhancing and sustaining our mission-critical systems across multiple product lines.

This role is ideal for a systems thinker who is passionate about maintaining and evolving complex products across their full lifecycle, balancing new feature development with the refinement, reuse, and longevity of existing capabilities. You'll collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams to ensure product quality, customer satisfaction, and design scalability as our product lines grow and mature.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations

• Collaborate within a team of systems engineers across our Sensor and Effector product families to define and deliver robust, scalable systems, with a focus on long-term maintainability, reliability, reuse, and sustainment.
• Support the evolution and reuse of core system assets (requirements, architecture, components) across product variants and future generation systems through structured Product Lifecycle Engineering (PLE) principles.
• Assist in defining and maintaining modular, configurable system architectures that support efficient development and sustainment across multiple products and versions.
• Champion the sustainment of deployed systems through robust design, documentation, traceability, and lifecycle planning—including end-of-life considerations, upgrade paths, and backwards compatibility.
• Manage the documentation and evolution of system design, requirements, and test strategies—including ongoing verification and validation for fielded systems.
• Engage with internal and external stakeholders to assess evolving customer needs and integrate changes or improvements into the product line roadmap.
• Drive technical investigations and system enhancements post-deployment, working across disciplines to ensure system reliability and performance over time.
• Partner with Product and Project Management to track system maturity, deliverables, and long-term roadmaps, aligning with key milestones and customer expectations.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

• BS or Masters degree in relevant engineering discipline (Systems Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science), or similar technical field of study or equivalent practical experience.
• 2+ years of experience performing systems engineering responsibilities within complex product development environments.
• Experience managing products through full lifecycle stages: concept, development, deployment, operations, maintenance, upgrades, and retirement.
• Hands-on experience with engineering change control processes (ECOs, ECRs) and formal configuration management of systems and documentation is desirable
• Understanding of component lifecycles (especially in hardware), and experience identifying, sourcing, and qualifying replacements for end-of-life parts.
• Maintaining clear links between requirements, design decisions, and test coverage over time as the system evolves.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and within a team environment on work packages and deliverables to achieve project outcomes
• Experience developing and testing AI-incorporated systems, radio frequency (RF) hardware and software is desirable.
• Exposure to Electronic Warfare, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, RF sensing, Sensor Fusion and distributed systems is desirable.
• An understanding of cybersecurity practices in systems engineering to ensure the integrity and security of systems is desirable.
• You are comfortable working within the Atlassian ecosystem and have experience or exposure to managing project deliverables using Jira or other project management tools.
• You would excel in a high empowerment, fast paced, environment, surrounded by likeminded, high achieving people.

Note for recruitment agencies: We do not accept unsolicited candidates from external recruiters unless specifically instructed.