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Shield AI, a venture-backed defense-tech company, is seeking a Senior Engineer to design, develop, and integrate safety-critical Run-Time Assurance (RTA) software for autonomous systems. The Hivemind Foundations team develops core autonomy and intelligence capabilities for aircraft and other platforms operating in complex environments. The RTA product is a real-time safety system that ensures autonomy remains safe, predictable, and effective at the edge, with direct application to X-BAT, Shield AI's flagship Group 5 Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) UAV.
In this role, you will develop, integrate, and test configurable RTA components that monitor autonomy behavior and support safe operation across representative platforms and scenarios. You'll adapt reusable C++ safety capabilities into production runtime components, including interface integration, configuration wiring, and comprehensive testing (unit, component, and integration). You'll implement real-time C++ code at the boundary between mission autonomy, high-assurance middleware, and flight-control interfaces, and integrate safety-critical software with aircraft hardware for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and flight-test campaigns, scaling from single-aircraft test points to multi-agent collaborative operations.
You'll strengthen engineering evidence through continuous integration, static and dynamic analysis, focused code reviews, software documentation, design specifications, interface control documents (ICDs), system models, test results, and traceability artifacts. You'll also share safe software practices through code reviews, design discussions, and clear technical write-ups, collaborating across software, systems, test, and platform teams.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Minimum 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 4 years with a Master's degree; or 2 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience
- Strong C++ development experience, including modern C++, testing, debugging, and performance-aware design
- Experience building software for real-time, embedded, robotics, autonomy, aerospace, or similarly constrained systems
- Experience integrating software with hardware, simulation, Hardware in the Loop (HIL), or production-like test environments and diagnosing reliability or performance issues
- Familiarity with C++ software design patterns and ability to work effectively within an existing architecture
- Strong Git and Linux development skills, along with modern software development practices such as CI/CD and test-focused development
- Ability to write clear technical documentation and collaborate across software, systems, test, and platform teams
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience with autonomy middleware, interface definitions, Python-based configuration tooling, CMake, Conan, or reusable C++ library integration
- Familiarity with high-reliability or safety-critical development practices, such as static analysis, coding standards, traceability, and requirements-based testing
- Experience developing against strict C++ coding standards such as MISRA C++ or JSF AV C++
- Hands-on experience with airworthiness or software assurance frameworks such as MIL-HDBK-516, DO-178C, or equivalent safety standards
- Experience taking a software component through verification, qualification, or certification evidence review
