Staff Engineer, Perception Software for Autonomous Systems

Shield AI; San Diego, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Benefits

Equity

Job summary

Shield AI's Hivemind Detection, Tracking, and Mapping team seeks a Staff Engineer to advance perception capabilities from production C++ libraries to SDK integration and release readiness across air, maritime, and ground domains.

This hybrid, San Diego-based role requires turning prototypes into reusable product libraries while collaborating across teams, and offers a base salary in the $200k–$300k range plus bonus, benefits, and equity.

Qualifications

• Production C++ software development experience for robotics or autonomous systems.
• Deep expertise in object detection, tracking, computer vision, or sensor fusion.
• Ability to deliver maintainable software with tests, diagnostics, documentation, and integration.
• Proficiency with Python for analysis, visualization, verification.
• Experience collaborating across teams and communicating designs clearly.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools and human validation.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement production perception capabilities in modern C++ with automated tests.
• Own features through the development lifecycle from requirements to release.
• Contribute technical judgment in DTM areas like object detection, tracking, or fusion.
• Work across sensor data contracts, coordinate frames, and end-to-end perception workflows.
• Diagnose complex system behavior using logs, sensor data, and simulations.
• Participate in design and code reviews and mentor other engineers.
• Evaluate emerging foundation-model capabilities for perception workflows.

Skills

Production C++ software

Robotics perception

Real-time systems

Software debugging

Python for analysis

Cross-team collaboration

AI-assisted development tools

Tools

CMake

Nix

Conan

GitLab CI

Python tooling

CI systems

Job description

Shield AI's Hivemind Detection, Tracking, and Mapping team seeks a Staff Engineer to advance perception capabilities from production C++ libraries to SDK integration and release readiness across air, maritime, and ground domains.

This hybrid, San Diego-based role requires turning prototypes into reusable product libraries while collaborating across teams, and offers a base salary in the $200k–$300k range plus bonus, benefits, and equity.