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, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. 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.
Job Description:
The Autonomous Pilot Integration team for expeditionary platforms builds autonomy solutions for V-BAT — an unmanned aircraft operating in expeditionary environments for ISR, target acquisition, communications, and multi-agent missions. The team also builds autonomy for X-BAT, a new platform under development by the aircraft team; for X-BAT, the team builds on top of the existing mission autonomy solution from the Strategic Systems (ACP) portfolio and works closely with the aircraft team on the flight-autonomy interface. We combine capabilities from the Autonomy Capabilities team (motion planning, tactics), the Perception team (e.g., ViDAR, ATR), and the HivemindSDK to develop the autonomy software that runs on these 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 (including VTOL transitions), 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'll lead a team of autonomy engineers focused primarily on Hivemind on V-BAT, with growing scope on Hivemind on X-BAT — owning their delivery, their growth, and the technical health of your area. A core part of the job is growing the team: hiring strong engineers, mentoring them through hard technical work, and shaping their career development. You'll stay technically active — writing code where it best serves the team, staying close to the integration work, making sound technical decisions, and leading them through the design, development, and delivery of a major capability or program. A defining part of this role is working in extreme partnership with the aircraft team that builds and maintains V-BAT and X-BAT — the relationship and tight coordination with them is critical to your team's success. You'll also partner closely with the Autonomy Capabilities, Perception, and GCS teams, feature crews, customer/program offices, the operator community that flies V-BAT today, and prospective customers for X-BAT as the new platform matures. This portfolio has a strong fielded-operator culture — long-endurance ISR missions, customer-driven workflow iteration, and demanding live exercises across multiple U.S. and international services — and you'll set the pace for your team accordingly.
What you'll do:
- Lead the Team — Manage a small-to-mid-sized engineering team (typically 5–10 engineers); own performance, growth, leveling, and delivery; run 1:1s, performance reviews, and team rituals.
- Grow the Team via Hiring — Drive hiring for your area: identify the skills you need, partner with recruiting, run interviews, set the bar, and personally close strong candidates.
- Grow Engineers Technically — Mentor engineers through hard problems; create stretch opportunities; give direct, actionable technical feedback; help engineers level up in both skill and impact.
- Aircraft Team Partnership — Maintain an exceptionally close, daily working relationship with the aircraft team that builds and maintains V-BAT — coordinating continuously on platform changes, autopilot interface evolution, sensor integration, hardware/software compatibility, and release planning. For X-BAT, work closely with the aircraft team to define and integrate the flight-autonomy interface. The success of this role depends heavily on these partnerships.
- Develop & Field Autonomy — Develop & integrate autonomy software solutions onto V-BAT, including payload and sensor integration (e.g., payload computer bring-up, ViDAR, EO/IR), integration with the custom V-BAT autopilot and its control modes (e.g., HSA, waypoint), multi-agent coordination, and customer release cadence — and lead a small team through the design, development, and delivery of a major capability or program.
- Technical Leadership — Lead a small feature crew or sub-program; set technical direction, break down work, unblock the team, and report progress to leadership and stakeholders.
- Hands-on Technical Contribution — Stay active in the code; contribute directly where it serves the team — prototyping new capabilities, taking on deep technical analysis of hard problems, or absorbing critical work during demo crunch. This is a manager role, not a managing-only role.
- Collaboration Across Teams & Partners — Act as a primary technical interface with the Autonomy Capabilities team (motion planning, tactics), the Perception team, the GCS team, feature crews, the Strategic Systems (ACP) portfolio (whose existing mission autonomy solution underpins X-BAT), and customer/program offices (U.S. and international services); author and negotiate ICDs and interface contracts rather than just consume them.
- Design & Documentation — Drive design reviews, ICDs, and post-mortems for your area; push the team toward higher rigor and close process gaps that span teams.
- Pre-deployment Preparation — Own the build, configuration, and validation process for mission-ready systems and customer releases; coordinate hardware/software compatibility, mission readiness, release cadence, and operator-facing workflow validation with capability and feature teams.
- On-site Test & Mission Support — Travel to test sites, customer exercises, and operator training/deployment events to support live mission operations (flight tests, range exercises, multi-agent live events, customer demonstrations, and fielded operator support), including safety checks, system bring-up, and troubleshooting under time-critical constraints.
- Hardware/Software Debugging — Diagnose and resolve integration issues across complex autonomy stacks, payload computers, and embedded systems in lab and field environments — including memory, CPU, and timing profiling under operationally-representative loads.
- Mission Data & Debrief Support — Capture mission and test data, reproduce issues in simulation, and partner with autonomy capability owners to drive fixes back into the next build.
- Continuous Improvement — Build tools and processes to improve integration timelines, test/mission reliability, and team efficiency across deployment cycles.
- C2 Interoperability & Standards — Own the interface contracts with GCS and C2 providers and drive compliance against common message and open-systems standards (e.g., STANAG 4586, UCI, OMS).
- Travel Requirement – Members of this team typically travel around 20-30% of the year (to different office locations, customer sites, operator training and deployment events, and integration events).
Required qualifications:
- BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and/or similar degree, or equivalent practical experience
- Typically requires a minimum of 7 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree; or 5 years and a Master's degree; or 4 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
- 2+ years of direct people-management experience (running 1:1s, performance reviews, hiring decisions, growth planning).
- Demonstrated experience building or growing an engineering team — including interviewing, hiring, and onboarding new engineers.
- Track record of mentoring engineers and growing their technical skill and career trajectory.
- Demonstrated experience leading a small technical team or owning a major capability from design through field delivery.
- Experience authoring or negotiating interface contracts / ICDs with internal or external stakeholders.
- Direct experience with Group 3 unmanned aircraft, VTOL platforms, or comparable medium-sized unmanned systems.
- Experience with multi-agent autonomy.
- Strong proficiency in C++, with experience developing or integrating real-time or latency-sensitive systems.
- Proficiency in Linux-based development and experience working with embedded systems, shell scripting, and system diagnostics.
- Familiarity with middleware, pub-sub, or IPC frameworks used in autonomy or robotics systems (e.g., DDS, message buses).
- Hands-on experience supporting live exercises, customer demonstrations, or operational test events for medium unmanned aircraft or fielded autonomous systems.
- Experience with autonomy simulation environments for testing and validation.
- Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to troubleshoot and optimize system performance across the full stack.
- Excellent communication and teamwork skills, with the ability to work effectively in a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment.
- Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.
Preferred qualifications:
- Direct experience integrating autonomy with custom or in-house autopilot stacks at the platform integration level.
- Experience integrating autonomy with VTOL or hybrid-mode aircraft across multiple control interfaces (e.g., high-level state, waypoint).
- Experience with EO/IR or ViDAR-class sensor integration.
- Experience with long-endurance ISR mission profiles.
- Proficiency in Python for scripting, automation, and analysis.
- Experience leading a feature crew, sub-program, or small team in an unmanned systems context.
- Experience growing engineers from mid-level into senior IC, or supporting promotion decisions through a leveling framework.
- Experience deploying autonomy onto fielded, customer-operated platforms — including operator workflow iteration, release cadence, and customer feedback loops.
- Experience iterating directly with fielded military operators or training cadres.
- Experience supporting international defense customer programs (FMS or direct commercial sales).
- Experience owning customer- or partner-facing technical relationships (e.g., autopilot teams, GCS teams, government program offices).
- Track record of cross-team improvements (process, rigor, documentation, or developer experience).
- Familiarity with autonomy stacks, motion planning, or vehicle-control integration.
- Competence in avionics bring-up, payload computer integration, or hardware-in-the-loop debugging.
- Experience developing for or deploying onto ARM-based systems (e.g., embedded payload computers).
- Experience with containerization (e.g., Docker) on embedded or payload compute.
- Proficiency in developing automation tools for system testing, logging, and data parsing.
- Experience developing custom GCS or mission planning surfaces (e.g., TypeScript / web-based applications).
- Build-system experience (e.g., Conan, CMake) and CI/CD pipeline familiarity.
- Comfortable interfacing with DoD stakeholders during field events or technical reviews.
- Experience with common message and open-systems standards such as STANAG 4586, UCI, or OMS.
#LI-ED1
#LD
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.