Staff Software Engineer, Autonomous Pilot Integration – Weapons (R5400)

Shield AI; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Shield AI is seeking an engineering lead for the Autonomous Pilot Integration team to drive the technical delivery of complex autonomy capabilities spanning platform integration, fleet operations, and operational deployment.

You will own end-to-end development from software-in-the-loop to live test exercises, collaborating with the Autonomy Capabilities, Perception, and HivemindSDK teams, and with customers to deliver scalable autonomy solutions for distributed platforms.

Job description

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. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.

The Autonomous Pilot Integration team for launched effects builds autonomy solutions for small, often air- or ground-launched platforms thatoperatein multi-agent fleets andfrequentlyin disconnected or air-gapped environments. We combine capabilities from the Autonomy Capabilities team (motion planning, tactics), the Perception team (e.g., track fusion), and theHivemindSDKto develop the autonomy software that runs on launched effects platforms, then integrate, validate, and field it on the real hardware—for U.S. and international defense customers. Our engineers write new autonomy code—such as mission behaviors, platform-specific control, multi-agent coordination, contingencies, and executive autonomy—and own it end-to-end from software-in-the-loop, to hardware-in-the-loop, to vehicle-in-the-loop, to live test exercise.

In this role,you\'lllead the technical delivery of complex autonomy capabilities spanning platform integration, fleet operations, and operational deployment.You\'llown some of the team\'s most challenging technical problems while driving technical direction across multiple subsystems and collaborating closely with the Autonomy Capabilities team, Perception, feature crews, autopilot vendors, C2 providers, and customer partners.You\'llcombine deep technicalexpertisewith systems thinking to deliver scalable autonomy solutions for fleet-scale operations.