Senior Autonomy Software Engineer (Unmanned Systems)

Shield AI; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to build and own autonomy behaviors powering our products, taking ownership from design through deployment. You’ll work across teams to translate complex mission needs into reliable, scalable software, balancing near-term delivery with long-term maintainability and performance.

You’ll contribute to the software stack across sensor processing, state estimation, communications, and actuation, collaborating with senior engineers to create reusable

Qualifications

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
• Proficient in production-level C++ software development.
• 5+ years’ experience in software sub-system scheduling and integration, behavior planning, task and resource allocation, motion planning, optimization, or flight controls.
• Experience with collaborative software development tools for version control, issue tracking, code reviews, release management.
• Ability to design, develop, and integrate complex software systems as part of a multi-disciplinary team.
• Demonstrated problem-solving skills and ability to learn new technologies in a fast-paced environment.
• Willingness to collaborate closely with teammates and support team objectives.
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Develop tactical autonomy software to enable unmanned platforms to perform complex missions across air, land, sea, and space domains with limited human supervision.
• Implement and test behaviors supporting multi-agent coordination, target engagement, reconnaissance, and survivability in contested scenarios.
• Contribute across the software development lifecycle, including requirements, design, implementation, verification, and validation, following established engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with senior engineers to design and build scalable, maintainable software components that integrate with broader system architecture (sensor processing, state estimation, communications, and actuation).
• Support reuse and extensibility of autonomy behaviors by contributing to shared frameworks and codebases.
• Work with internal product and program teams to deliver capabilities to vehicle platforms, helping ensure successful integration and iteration over time.
• Collaborate with cross-functional and external teams to align on interfaces and system requirements.
• Apply strong software engineering fundamentals to solve complex technical problems, while growing domain expertise in autonomy and robotics systems.
• Travel up to 20% to support integration, testing, and collaboration with end-users and partner teams.

Skills

C++

Education

BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, or related field

Tools

ROS

OMPL

Optimization tools

Job description

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to build and own autonomy behaviors powering our products, taking ownership from design through deployment. You’ll work across teams to translate complex mission needs into reliable, scalable software, balancing near-term delivery with long-term maintainability and performance.

You’ll contribute to the software stack across sensor processing, state estimation, communications, and actuation, collaborating with senior engineers to create reusable