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Senior Staff Software Engineer, Autonomous Pilot Integration – Weapons (R5398)

Shield AI · Washington, D.C. · San Diego, California · Boston, Massachusetts · Dallas, Texas

Spotted 92d agoFull-time

Job details

Work mode
On-site
Employment
Full-time
Level
Staff / principal
Posted
Jul 21, 2026
Last confirmed open
Oct 21, 2026

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Company-specific questions

  • This position may require access to information and technology that is subject to export controls, such as EAR. Are you any of the following?
  • Shield AI provides technology, services, and support to the United States military and allied forces with their various missions. If selected for employment with Shield AI, your contributions will directly relate to and/or support these missions. Are there any reasons why you would not be able to fully contribute in support of the U.S. military and allied forces?
  • Are you a transitioning service member?
  • What full time job(s) are you applying for?essay
Job description

About this role

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.

The Autonomous Pilot Integration team for launched effects builds autonomy solutions for small, often air- or ground-launched platforms that operate in multi-agent fleets and frequently in disconnected or air-gapped environments.

We combine capabilities from the Autonomy Capabilities team (motion planning, tactics), the Perception team (e.g., track fusion), and the HivemindSDK to 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'll lead the technical delivery of complex autonomy capabilities spanning platform integration, fleet operations, and operational deployment.

You'll own 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'll combine deep technical expertise with systems thinking to deliver scalable autonomy solutions for fleet-scale operations.

Interested in this role?Continue on Shield AI's careers page.
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