Senior Customer Sustainment Engineer - Hivemind

InvestedintheMission

San Diego (CA)

On-site

USD 180,000 - 270,000

Full time

14 days+

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Job summary

Shield AI in San Diego, CA is seeking a Senior Customer Sustainment Engineer to support Hivemind systems post-sale. You will own Tier 1 support, coordinate incidents, gather evidence, and guide customers toward resolution.

This role blends customer support with engineering, requiring strong troubleshooting across software, Linux, networks, and telemetry, plus experience reading C++ codes and scripting in Python. A DoD security clearance when required is preferred.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical, military, field-engineering, or technical experience.
7+ years of hands-on experience supporting fielded, software-enabled systems in customer, operational, test, deployment, or sustainment environments.
Experience with cyber-physical, edge, mission, robotics, autonomy, aviation, defense, industrial-control, or similarly complex deployed systems.
Strong troubleshooting skills across software, Linux, configuration, networking, logs, telemetry, software versions, and hardware-adjacent interfaces.
A record of owning technical issues from an incomplete initial report through diagnosis and resolution.
Ability to read and reason about modern C++ and use existing Python, Bash, or similar scripts during troubleshooting and log analysis.
Clear written and verbal communication with customers, operators, and engineering teams, including during time-sensitive situations.
Ability to write useful incident records, troubleshooting guidance, engineering escalations, and customer-facing updates.
Sound judgment when working within security, export-control, safety, customer-site, contractual, and data-handling requirements.
Ability to possess a Secret DoD security clearance when required by customers.

Responsibilities

Own Tier 1 customer support and incident coordination from initial report through confirmed resolution.
Gather the information needed to understand an issue, including mission impact, software version, configuration, deployment state, logs, telemetry, screenshots, network context, and reproduction steps.
Troubleshoot Hivemind software, APIs, licensing and provisioning, deployments, configurations, networks, operator workflows, and partner or OEM integrations.
Separate product defects from configuration problems, environmental differences, integration issues, training needs, and feature requests.
Resolve common technical problems, handle appropriate Tier 2 investigations, and reproduce more complex failures in lab, simulation, or representative test environments.
Recognize issues that require Tier 3 or depot-level product repair and give engineering teams concise escalation packages that explain the impact, evidence, likely causes, work already attempted, and expected result.
Provide customers with clear updates, practical next steps, and technically sound workarounds while investigations are in progress.
Support software releases, upgrades, onboarding, licensing and provisioning workflows, and the transition from deployment into ongoing sustainment.
Turn recurring issues into troubleshooting guides, known-issue records, diagnostic tools, training material, and product feedback.
Use incident patterns to identify improvements to product reliability, diagnostics, documentation, and release readiness.