Senior Staff Software Engineer, Autonomous Pilot Integration – Emerging Domains (R5398)
Shield AI2 months ago
Base Salary
$234k - $351k/yr
Responsibilities
- Define technical strategy and architecture for autonomy on new platforms and mission areas.
- Lead development, integration, validation, deployment, and operational readiness of autonomy capabilities across emerging domains.
- Drive architecture reviews, engineering standards, interface control documents, integration strategies, and technical best practices.
- Resolve complex autonomy integration issues spanning software, hardware, embedded systems, and platform interfaces.
- Guide release strategy, mission validation, live testing, customer demonstrations, operational exercises, and mission debriefs.
- Define C2 interoperability strategy and guide adoption of open-systems defense standards.
- Improve engineering processes, developer experience, testing infrastructure, and integration workflows.
- Mentor senior engineers, help define senior engineering hiring standards, and develop future technical leaders.
- Partner with platform teams, autonomy and perception teams, engineering leadership, customers, and external partners.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s or master’s degree in a relevant engineering discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
- Typically 10+ years of relevant experience.
- Expert-level C++ and Linux systems development experience.
- Demonstrated ability to define technical strategy across multiple programs or engineering organizations.
- Proven experience solving complex systems integration challenges in ambiguous environments.
- Experience mentoring senior engineers and influencing engineering direction without formal authority.
- Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.
- Preferred: experience leading first-of-kind autonomy or advanced R&D efforts.
- Preferred: experience across multiple autonomy domains, including air, maritime, space, ground, or robotics.
- Preferred: experience transitioning prototypes into operational systems and working with government R&D programs or defense customers.
- Preferred: experience shaping engineering practices across an organization.
- Preferred: experience with UCI, OMS, STANAG 4586, or other defense interoperability standards.
Benefits
- Full-time regular employee offer package includes bonus, benefits, and equity.
- Travel is typically 10–20% of the year to offices, customer sites, operator training events, flight tests, and integration exercises.
- Offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check.
About Shield AI
Founded in 2015, 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.