Senior Software Engineer, Perception (R5420) Software

Front Door Defense; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 163,200 - 244,800; Full time

Job summary

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Software Engineer, Perception to develop and deploy cutting-edge vision and vision-language models for autonomous drones. You will own features from model development through deployment, collaborating with researchers, perception engineers, autonomy engineers, and platform teams to bring AI capabilities into production.

The role focuses on production-grade ML systems, data pipelines, SFT workflows, and robust evaluation within diverse operational environments.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years related experience with a Bachelor's; or 4 years with a Master's; or 2 years with a PhD.
• Proficiency in machine learning fundamentals.
• Experience training and deploying ML models for computer vision in production.
• Strong understanding of 3D vision problems/algorithms.
• Experience with PyTorch and TensorFlow.
• Demonstrated expertise in deploying models using TensorRT and ONNX.
• Proficiency in C++ and Python.
• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance

Responsibilities

• Design, train, fine-tune, and maintain vision, vision-language, and vision-language-action models for perception.
• Build scalable data pipelines, supervised fine-tuning workflows, and evaluation loops.
• Deploy and optimize ML models for embedded hardware using ONNX, TensorRT.
• Apply ML techniques to perception and autonomy problems across aerial systems.
• Translate research into production capabilities balancing performance and reliability.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate ML into mission-ready systems.
• Develop benchmarks, testing methodologies, and evaluation frameworks.
• Improve training infrastructure and deployment workflows

Skills

Machine Learning

Computer Vision

PyTorch

TensorFlow

C++

Python

TensorRT

ONNX

3D Vision

Clearance

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

PhD

Job description

Senior Software Engineer, Perception (R5420)

Develop and deploy production-grade vision-language perception models for autonomous drones

Location: Washington, District of ColumbiaDallas, TexasSan Diego, CaliforniaBoston, Massachusetts

Compensation: $163,200 - 244,800 USD / year

About The Role

Machine Learning Engineer

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI's technology actively supports operations worldwide.

The Hivemind Solutions Perception team develops the next generation of perception capabilities for autonomous systems by combining state-of-the-art machine learning with the proven foundations of computer vision. The team advances how autonomous platforms understand and interpret the world by developing vision, vision-language (VLM), and vision-language-action (VLA) models that tackle core perception challenges such as object understanding, scene interpretation, and mission-relevant environmental awareness. Working at the intersection of research and production, our engineers build the data pipelines, supervised fine-tuning (SFT) workflows, evaluation frameworks, and deployment infrastructure needed to transform cutting‑edge AI research into reliable, mission‑ready perception capabilities.

In this role, you'll develop and deploy advanced machine learning models that solve real‑world perception challenges for autonomous systems. You'll own major features from model development through deployment, working closely with machine learning researchers, perception engineers, autonomy engineers, and platform teams to bring cutting‑edge AI capabilities into production. This is an ideal opportunity for engineers who enjoy solving difficult perception problems while building reliable, production‑ready ML systems that operate on autonomous platforms in complex operational environments.

What You'll Do:

• Model Development – Design, train, fine‑tune, and maintain state‑of‑the‑art vision, vision‑language, and vision‑language‑action models that improve perception and decision‑making for autonomous systems.
• Data Pipelines & Model Training – Build scalable data pipelines, supervised fine‑tuning (SFT) workflows, and evaluation loops that continuously improve model performance on mission‑relevant tasks.
• Model Deployment & Optimization – Deploy and optimize machine learning models for embedded hardware using technologies such as ONNX, TensorRT, and hardware‑accelerated inference frameworks.
• Perception & Autonomy Applications – Apply modern machine learning techniques to solve challenging perception and autonomy problems across aerial and other autonomous systems operating in complex, real‑world environments.
• Research‑to‑Production – Translate cutting‑edge machine learning research into production‑ready capabilities by balancing model performance, robustness, computational efficiency, and operational reliability.
• Cross‑functional Collaboration – Partner closely with perception, autonomy, platform, and software engineering teams to integrate machine learning capabilities into mission‑ready autonomous systems.
• Model Evaluation & Validation – Develop benchmarks, testing methodologies, and evaluation frameworks to measure model performance, identify failure modes, and guide future improvements.
• Continuous Improvement – Improve training infrastructure, developer tooling, deployment workflows, and model lifecycle management to accelerate experimentation and production delivery.

Required 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 2 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
• Proficiency of machine learning fundamentals.
• Experience training and deploying ML models for computer vision in a production setting.
• Strong understanding of 3D vision problems/algorithms.
• Experience with machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch and TensorFlow.
• Demonstrated expertise in deploying models using TensorRT and ONNX.
• Proficiency in C++ and Python.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to translate research into practical applications.
• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with developing autonomous systems for defense customers.
• Experience with training/finetuning vision‑language models, vision‑language‑action models, and/or world models.
• Contributions to open‑source projects in machine learning or computer vision.
• Track record of publications in leading computer vision and robotics conferences and journals (e.g., CVPR, ICCV/ECCV, RAL, ICRA).

$163,200 - $244,800 a year

Full‑time regular employee offer package:

• Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
• Temporary employee offer package:
• Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)

Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part‑time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.

Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.