8 months ago
Base Salary
$216k - $323k/yr
Responsibilities
- Define and evolve the system-wide software architecture for XBAT across airborne vehicle, ground-station, mission, vehicle, and autonomy software.
- Translate safety and security objectives into technical requirements, standards, design patterns, and compliance pathways.
- Drive cross-team alignment on APIs, data flows, fault handling, verification strategy, risk management, and integration boundaries.
- Establish architecture governance including decision records, change control, quality gates, technical reviews, and collaboration processes.
- Produce and maintain system diagrams, component interfaces, data models, risk analyses, and design rationales.
- Partner with systems, hardware, avionics, engineering leadership, and validation teams on timing, resource allocation, performance, and failure modes.
- Evaluate frameworks, middleware, and tooling and support architecture readiness and compliance reviews.
- Mentor senior engineers and architects and improve architecture practices, documentation, metrics, onboarding, and knowledge sharing.
Requirements
- Deep expertise in software architecture for complex, multi-domain systems, ideally in aerospace, defense, autonomous, or safety-critical environments.
- Proven experience designing and delivering production software subject to stringent safety, security, or mission-assurance requirements.
- Strong systems-thinking skills covering performance, latency, reliability, testability, certification, and compliance tradeoffs.
- Experience driving architecture adoption and discipline across multiple teams.
- Bachelor’s or advanced degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace, or a closely related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Ability to obtain a S//SAR level security clearance is desired.
- Familiarity with aerospace software assurance frameworks and high-assurance airborne software development.
- Experience integrating autonomy, mission-planning, or AI-enabled software into real-world systems.
- Understanding of cyber hardening and secure design for distributed vehicle systems and ground infrastructure.
- Experience with constrained platforms, real-time requirements, limited compute, avionics integration, VTOL or advanced aircraft programs, austere or long-range operations, resilient autonomy, or flight-test and operational deployment lifecycles.
- Practical knowledge of tooling for traceability, automated verification, static analysis, and high-assurance pipelines.
- Prior leadership or mentoring responsibility for building and scaling architecture practices and design culture.
Benefits
- Full-time regular employees receive bonus, benefits, and equity in addition to pay within the listed range.
- Temporary employees receive a temporary benefits package applicable after 60 days of employment.
- Employment offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check.
- The position is a full-time regular employee role unless otherwise specified.
Categories
About Shield AI
Shield AI builds autonomous systems for military and national security customers, combining its Hivemind autonomy software with V-BAT and X-BAT unmanned aircraft and Aechelon simulation technologies. The privately held company sells hardware, software, and related services to U.S. and allied defense agencies. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in San Diego, it operates across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, and its technology is used in operational deployments.