Senior Autonomy Engineer — Multi-Domain Robotics

Shield; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Shield AI in Washington, DC area seeks a seasoned Autonomy Engineer to advance tactical autonomy for unmanned platforms. You will design and implement autonomous control strategies, integrate planning, decision-making and behavior execution, and work with cross-functional teams to field advanced autonomy solutions.

The role emphasizes both theory and practical implementation, requiring DoD-relevant experience, strong coding skills, and collaboration across hardware, software and flight-test

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical, Mechanical or Aerospace engineering or equivalent.
• Proficiency in C++ and Python with RTOS familiarity.
• Background in robotics, motion planning and autonomous systems.

Responsibilities

• Design tactical autonomy algorithms for unmanned platforms across domains.
• Develop high-performance software modules for planning and behavior execution.
• Implement and test multi-agent behavior architectures for coordination.
• Bridge classical autonomy with learning-based methods and RL.
• Collaborate with perception, planning, simulation, hardware and flight test teams.
• Deploy autonomy capabilities to real platforms and participate in field tests.

Skills

C++

Python

RTOS

Robotics

Education

BS/MS in CS/EE/ME/Aerospace or equivalent

Tools

AFSIM

NGTS

Job description

Shield AI in Washington, DC area seeks a seasoned Autonomy Engineer to advance tactical autonomy for unmanned platforms. You will design and implement autonomous control strategies, integrate planning, decision-making and behavior execution, and work with cross-functional teams to field advanced autonomy solutions.

The role emphasizes both theory and practical implementation, requiring DoD-relevant experience, strong coding skills, and collaboration across hardware, software and flight-test