Staff IT Systems Engineer, ICT Lead (R5660)

The role

Lead the regional ICT team for Shield AI's Australian hub and its programs across Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Own the network, cloud, endpoint and identity services, and the export-control and sovereignty compliance controls behind them.

What you will do

• Lead, develop and grow a small ICT team, including hiring, performance and on-call rostering.
• Set the regional ICT strategy, roadmap, budget and capital plan.
• Own the regional network, including switching, wireless, routing, SD-WAN, firewalls, VPN, DNS and DHCP.
• Own regional cloud architecture and operations across AWS and/or Azure, with data residency enforced by design.
• Act as the regional ICT authority for ITAR, EAR and Australian Defence Trade Controls Act compliance.
• Design access controls that segregate data by nationality, program, clearance and need-to-know.
• Maintain alignment to the ASD Essential Eight and the Information Security Manual, and support DISP obligations.
• Own identity and access management, endpoint security, logging, and patch and vulnerability management.
• Manage local vendors, managed service providers and licensing agreements.
• Manage the regional IT asset lifecycle from procurement to secure decommissioning.

Required qualifications

• Australian citizenship, and an NV1 security clearance held or the demonstrated ability to obtain and maintain one.
• 10+ years in enterprise ICT across infrastructure, network and systems administration.
• 3+ years directly leading technical teams, including hiring, performance management and development.
• Demonstrated ownership of enterprise networking: routing, switching, SD-WAN or WAN, firewalls, VLANs, wireless, VPN, DNS, DHCP and monitoring.
• Hands-on cloud engineering and operations in AWS and/or Azure, including identity federation, network integration, IaC and cost management.
• Strong administration across Windows, macOS and Linux, with Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, group policy, IAM, Intune and Jamf.
• Practical experience inside a multinational structure reconciling a foreign parent's standards with local regulatory obligations.
• Working knowledge of export control and data-classification regimes (ITAR, EAR, Defence Trade Controls Act 2012, Australian Government classification and handling requirements).
• Experience operating in classified, need-to-know or access-restricted environments.
• Scripting and automation capability (PowerShell, Bash or Python).
• Excellent written and verbal communication, able to brief executives, customers and certifiers.
• Willingness to travel domestically and regionally, join an on-call rotation and support after-hours maintenance.

Nice to have

• Experience with a defence prime, defence SME or Defence itself, delivering ICT into Australian Defence programs.
• Familiarity with AUKUS Pillar 2 arrangements, licence-free environment provisions, or equivalent bilateral technology-sharing frameworks.
• Experience establishing or maintaining DISP membership, or supporting IRAP assessments and ISM-aligned accreditation.
• Experience standing up ICT for a new site, facility or country entry.
• Exposure to Indo-Pacific delivery, partner-nation engagement or deployed operations.
• Experience automating IT operations and workflows using agentic AI capability.
• Relevant certifications: AWS or Azure architecture, CCNP or equivalent, CISSP, ITIL.

Benefits

• Salary influenced by skill set, experience, licences and certifications, and work location.

Before you apply

• Australian citizenship is required.
• An NV1 security clearance is required, held or obtainable.
• All offers are contingent on a cleared background check and possible reference check.

About the company

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company that protects service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation technologies.