Senior Flight Test Engineer, Autonomy Systems

Shield AI; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Benefits

Equity

Job summary

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Engineer, Flight Test to lead comprehensive flight test strategies validating autonomous behaviors and software integrations across real-world environments. You will collaborate with software, hardware, and product teams to reproduce mission scenarios, identify issues, and improve platform reliability.

The role focuses on building testing tooling, automating validation workflows, and mentoring engineers to raise testing standards and operational readiness.

Qualifications

• Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 4 years and a Master's degree; or equivalent work experience.
• Proficiency in software quality engineering, test automation, and programming with Python and C++.
• Experience planning and executing field or flight testing for robotics, autonomous systems, or complex software platforms.
• Experience developing automated test tooling, validation frameworks, or data analysis tools.
• Demonstrated experience designing, documenting, executing, and tracking test plans, test cases, and software defects.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to analyze flight logs, telemetry, and system behavior to identify root causes.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to collaborate across software, hardware, product, and test organizations.
• FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate (or the ability to obtain one within a reasonable timeframe).

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute flight test plans that validate new autonomy capabilities, software integrations, and system performance in real-world flight environments.
• Design and execute test scenarios that reproduce operational customer workflows and mission conditions to identify software defects, integration issues, and performance limitations.
• Build analysis tools and validation workflows that improve test coverage, accelerate regression testing, and reduce time to identify issues.
• Review flight logs, telemetry, rosbags, and system data to triage issues, perform root-cause analysis, and collaborate with engineering teams to drive resolution.
• Work closely with middleware, autonomy, and integration teams to develop complementary test strategies, share tooling, and improve overall product quality.
• Provide technical guidance to junior engineers, establish testing standards, and help improve engineering processes across the organization.
• Maintain standard operating procedures, participate in flight operations, and contribute to the continuous improvement of testing processes and operational readiness.

Skills

Python

C++

Software quality engineering

Test automation

Field/flight testing

Root-cause analysis

Communication

FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

ROS

CI/CD

Linux

HIL testing

Simulation tools

TypeScript

JSON

C++14/C++17

Job description

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Engineer, Flight Test to lead comprehensive flight test strategies validating autonomous behaviors and software integrations across real-world environments. You will collaborate with software, hardware, and product teams to reproduce mission scenarios, identify issues, and improve platform reliability.

The role focuses on building testing tooling, automating validation workflows, and mentoring engineers to raise testing standards and operational readiness.