Introduction to Shield AI

Shield AI’s mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Shield AI is a fast growing, venture-backed defense-technology company built around a team of proven executives, distinguished warfighters, and world-class AI engineers. Since 2018, Shield AI’s products and people have supported operations around the world with the US Department of Defense and our allies.

Job Description 

The Planning and Controls (PAC) team researches, develops, and commercializes state-of-the-art intelligent, intuitive, and robust algorithms that interpret and decompose high-level user-oriented objectives into system tasks objectives; reason about the environment to plan paths and trajectories that optimally achieve objectives; ensure safe and accurate flight under any environmental factors. We support a variety of platforms in single-agent contexts, multi-agent contexts (both homogenous and heterogenous), and manned-unmanned contexts. 

The PAC team has a collection of world class talent across AI and SW disciplines, and is excited and ready to mentor new members on the team! 

What You’ll Do

• Research, design, and implement state-of-the-art planning algorithms, taking ideas from conception to field deployment (e.g. including graph search, inference on a graph, sampling-based planning, MILP solvers, etc.) 
• Optimize the planning stack on the CPU and GPU 
• Develop core systems that must be portable and scalable across different UAS platforms and compute architectures 
• Work with our Hivemind Design team to design and build infrastructure for the PAC team that both supports local development and scales into the cloud 

Projects that you might work on:

• Design and implement: a portable world graph that enables rapid global planning across different platforms; complex exploration behaviours for indoor and outdoor environments with heterogenous teams 
• Port libraries from ROS to EdgeOS, a Shield AI Middleware framework, that enables portability of PAC libraries to multiple platforms and compute architectures 
• Implement an analysis and simulation framework that: enables testing of various components in isolation or in a fully integrated manner; supports parameter sweeps; supports hardware-in-the-loop 

Required qualifications:

• Typically requires a Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 2 years of related experience; or an advanced degree without experience; or equivalent work experience.
• BS in computer science or related engineering field 
• Experience with C++ 11 or newer 
• Demonstrated record of working hard, strong communication skills, being a trustworthy teammate, and being kind to others 
• The desire to learn and grow in the disciplines of software engineering and robotics 
• Familiarity with continuous integration/delivery & test-driven development 
• Familiarity with git, bash, Python 

Total compensation: Salary within range listed above + Bonus + Benefits + Equity (if applicable)

Actual 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. Information on the benefits offered is here. All offers are contingent on a cleared background check.

Location guidelines-

Onsite = 5 days/week

Hybrid = Several days in the office

Remote = Remote but able to come to the office as requested for business needs

If you're interested in being part of our team, apply now! 

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. 

To conform to U.S. Government regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.