Chief Space Autonomy Engineer

Shield; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 260,000 - 380,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Shield AI is seeking a Chief Engineer, Autonomy — Space Domain to define and deliver space autonomy capabilities across satellites, hosted payloads, and ground systems. You will own the technical vision, architecture, verification strategy, and operational readiness for mission‑ready autonomy in multi‑orbit environments.

This senior leader will drive end‑to‑end system design, risk management, and cross‑functional collaboration with customers and internal partners, guiding architectural standards

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field; advanced degree preferred.
• 12+ years in autonomy, space systems, or related fields.
• Experience as Chief Engineer or senior technical leader responsible for end‑to‑end outcomes.
• Designing and operationalizing software‑intensive mission systems with high reliability.
• Strong written and verbal communication; ability to influence across executives and customers.
• Experience supporting customer-facing technical work and proposals.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the senior technical authority for space-domain autonomy and mission architecture.
• Define and evolve an autonomy architecture across satellites, payloads, and ground systems.
• Lead development of autonomous behaviors for multi‑constellation and multi‑orbit tasking.
• Architect data collection/configuration strategies across payload classes.
• Govern hybrid on‑board/off‑board processing and inference locations.
• Lead design of advanced exploitation capabilities and sensor fusion.
• Own dissemination standards, interfaces, and data quality metadata.
• Coordinate autonomy interfaces among spacecraft buses, flight software, cloud, and data platforms.
• Drive rigorous system requirements, test plans, verification matrices, and baselines.
• Lead autonomy readiness activities for reviews, demonstrations, and launches.
• Identify and mitigate autonomy-specific risks (sensors, links, data integrity, security).
• Partner with product, mission operations, security, and customer teams.
• Mentor a high‑performing technical organization.

Skills

System architecture

Technical leadership

Verbal & written communication

Customer engagement

Risk management

Collaborative problem solving

Education

Bachelor’s & related technical degree

12+ years autonomy/space experience

Senior engineering leadership experience

Tools

Systems engineering practices

Job description

Shield AI is seeking a Chief Engineer, Autonomy — Space Domain to define and deliver space autonomy capabilities across satellites, hosted payloads, and ground systems. You will own the technical vision, architecture, verification strategy, and operational readiness for mission‑ready autonomy in multi‑orbit environments.

This senior leader will drive end‑to‑end system design, risk management, and cross‑functional collaboration with customers and internal partners, guiding architectural standards