Senior Perception & Autonomy Lead

Shieldai; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Shield AI in Washington, DC seeks a seasoned leader to manage a technical team focused on perception algorithms for aerospace, defense, and robotics systems. You will drive development, integration, and testing of perception software across sensors and platforms, delivering robust autonomy capabilities for real missions.

The role emphasizes hands-on software programming in C++, system-level integration, and cross-functional collaboration with hardware and test teams.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and/or similar degree, or equivalent practical experience.
• Demonstrated experience integrating and working with sensor payloads in the DoD space.
• Proficient with sensor fusion for noisy high-bandwidth exteroceptive sensors on compute-constrained systems.
• Strong foundation in theory related to state estimation, object detection, data association, probabilistic robotics, and signal processing.

Responsibilities

• Lead teams across autonomy, integration, and testing by aligning technical efforts and driving mission-focused execution.
• Write production quality software in C++.
• Produce an Assured Position, Navigation, and Timing (A-PNT) system for reliable autonomy in GNSS-degraded environments.
• Extend and specialize Shield AI’s state-of-the-art state estimation framework for new sensors, platforms, and missions.
• Write test code to validate software with simulated and real-world data.
• Collaborate with hardware and test teams to validate algorithms on aerial platforms.
• Write analyzers to ingest data and produce statistics to validate code quality.
• Enhance sensor models within a high-fidelity simulation environment.
• Work in a fast-paced, collaborative, continuous development environment.

Skills

C++ programming

Sensor fusion

State estimation

Kalman Filter

Factor Graphs

Probabilistic robotics

Unix environments

Object detection

Software benchmarking

Education

BS in CS/EE/ME/AE or equivalent

MS or higher in CS/EE/ME/AE or equivalent

Tools

OpenCV

Simulation tools

Job description

Shield AI in Washington, DC seeks a seasoned leader to manage a technical team focused on perception algorithms for aerospace, defense, and robotics systems. You will drive development, integration, and testing of perception software across sensors and platforms, delivering robust autonomy capabilities for real missions.

The role emphasizes hands-on software programming in C++, system-level integration, and cross-functional collaboration with hardware and test teams.