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Shield AI is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the development of tactical autonomy software for unmanned platforms operating across air, land, sea, and space domains. This is a high-impact technical leadership role where you will architect and implement complex behaviors enabling multi-agent coordination, target engagement, reconnaissance, and survivability in contested scenarios.
You will own the full software development lifecycle—from requirements capture through design, implementation, verification, and validation. Your responsibilities include architecting behaviors as scalable software subsystems that interact with diverse components such as sensor processing, state estimation, peer-to-peer communications, contingency management, actuation, and payload interfacing. You will champion a product-line mindset to enable behavior reuse across multiple projects and portfolios.
As a subject matter expert, you will represent software equities in a multi-stakeholder environment including engineering, business, and sales leadership. You will collaborate with external teams to align on interfacing requirements, work closely with vehicle integration teams and operational subject matter experts (e.g., fighter pilots, UAV operators), and leverage internal engineering teams to rapidly deliver state-of-the-art capabilities. You will mentor junior team members, build team cohesion, and set technical direction for multi-disciplinary teams. Travel to co-locate with end-users and other teams is expected up to 20% of the time.
REQUIREMENTS:
- BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, or related field
- Proficient in production-level C++ software development
- 7+ years' experience in one or more of: software sub-system scheduling and integration, behavior planning, task and resource allocation, motion planning, optimization, or flight controls
- Experience with collaborative software development tools (version control, issue tracking, code reviews, release management)
- Proven ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams, set technical direction, and manage full project lifecycles from concept to deployment
- Capacity to learn, grow individually, and mentor junior team members effectively
- Desire to work in a highly collaborative, fast-paced, mission-centric environment
- Capacity to act as technical owner for an entire software system, including stakeholder engagement, requirements definition, roadmap management, team coordination, design, implementation, sustainment, and evolution
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience across a breadth of technology readiness levels (TRLs) and bridging concepts from research-grade to operationally ready
- Experience with mission systems integration and hands-on support for integration events and/or flight demonstrations
- Experience across multiple application areas including collaborative mission planning, behavior planning, synchronized teaming, automated red force vs blue force tactics, motion planning across vehicle classes, weapons target assignment, sensor target pairing, collision avoidance, geofencing, and safety-monitoring
- Experience in multiple operational effects (strike, air combat, surveillance, etc.)
