Staff Engineer, Trajectory Modeling for Safe Autonomy

Lever, Inc.; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Bonus

Benefits

Job summary

Shield AI seeks a Staff Engineer to design, develop, and integrate a real-time Run-Time Assurance product for Hivemind autonomy software and X-BAT aircraft. You will lead trajectory-prediction and aircraft-response modeling, collaborating with C/C++ engineers to deliver reliable systems used on UAV platforms.

You'll work at the boundary of safety logic, vehicle state, and autopilot interfaces, validating models with simulation, HIL, and flight-test data, and shaping production readiness for edge

Qualifications

• 7+ years of related experience; or 4+ years with a PhD.
• Deep experience in trajectory prediction and aerospace simulation.
• Expert Python skills and proficiency in C/C++ production code.
• Experience with validation through simulation, HIL, or flight data.

Responsibilities

• Lead development, tuning, and validation of TPA and recovery-behavior models using aircraft performance data, command-response assumptions, 3DOF/6DOF flyout concepts, wind effects, uncertainty bounds, and maneuver constraints.
• Build Python-based analysis, simulation, HIL, and flight-test workflows to compare predicted versus observed aircraft behavior, identify model gaps, tune parameters, and maintain regression datasets.
• Integrate and evaluate trajectory-prediction behavior through off-the-shelf or custom autopilot interfaces, including command modes, vehicle-state inputs, latency, mode transitions, control limits, and telemetry analysis.
• Support hardware integration and flight-test campaigns across relevant platforms; also help evolve trajectory-prediction and safety behaviors from single-aircraft use cases toward multi-agent collaborative CONOPS. Produce algorithm handoff artifacts and contribute scoped C/C++ implementation, testing, and debugging as needed.

Skills

Python

C/C++

Trajectory prediction

Aerospace simulation

GNC

Test automation

Flight-test data

Education

Bachelor’s degree in related field

Tools

Linux

CMake

Conan

CI/CD

Job description

Shield AI seeks a Staff Engineer to design, develop, and integrate a real-time Run-Time Assurance product for Hivemind autonomy software and X-BAT aircraft. You will lead trajectory-prediction and aircraft-response modeling, collaborating with C/C++ engineers to deliver reliable systems used on UAV platforms.

You'll work at the boundary of safety logic, vehicle state, and autopilot interfaces, validating models with simulation, HIL, and flight-test data, and shaping production readiness for edge