Autonomy Engineering Manager — Lead & Grow Team

Shield; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Shield AI is seeking a director-level leader to own the Autonomy Capabilities team's technical delivery and people leadership. You will hire, mentor, and grow engineers while guiding system architecture from rapid prototyping to live test exercises.

You will translate customer needs into autonomy capabilities for air, sea, and space platforms, collaborating with DoD and international defense customers, and ensuring high-performance, well-tested software across simulations and field deployments.

Qualifications

• BS in CS/EE/ME/AE or related field with 7+ years of relevant experience.
• Experience leading engineers as a people manager or team lead.
• Track record delivering a technical team from design to field delivery.
• Strong robotics/autonomy experience: motion planning, multi-agent coordination.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the autonomy engineering team, including hiring and mentoring.
• Own technical delivery from design to integration, validation, and field deployment.
• Set technical direction for mission autonomy across platforms.
• Drive engineering rigor and testing across software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, and live tests.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and defense customers to shape requirements.

Skills

People leadership

Robotics/autonomy

C++ production software

System-level problem solving

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

BS in CS/EE/ME/AE or related field

MS preferred

Tools

ROS/ROS2

Robotics simulation environments

Git

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Shield AI is seeking a director-level leader to own the Autonomy Capabilities team's technical delivery and people leadership. You will hire, mentor, and grow engineers while guiding system architecture from rapid prototyping to live test exercises.

You will translate customer needs into autonomy capabilities for air, sea, and space platforms, collaborating with DoD and international defense customers, and ensuring high-performance, well-tested software across simulations and field deployments.