Are you a passionate and innovative engineer looking to help develop state-of-the-art AI and robotics products? Are you eager to make a positive difference in the world? Do you want to work alongside mission-driven and values-focused teammates? Shield AI is just the place for you!
The Hivemind Integration & Test team is committed to ensuring our autonomy platform delivers a seamless developer experience and enables customers to build world-class autonomous systems. We focus on integrating, validating, and continuously improving the Hivemind ecosystem—spanning autonomy behaviors, sensor processing, multi-agent coordination, ground-control systems, and embedded platforms. Our mission is to ensure that autonomy developers can efficiently build, test, and deploy autonomous applications that meet real-world mission objectives.
In this role, you will lead a team responsible for integrating, validating, and scaling the Hivemind autonomy platform across simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, and operational environments. You will serve as both a technical leader and people manager—guiding engineers in the development of robust integration and test capabilities while remaining actively engaged in hands-on system integration, validation, and customer-focused workflows.
As a power user of the Hivemind SDK, you will develop a deep understanding of its capabilities, identify gaps from a customer perspective, and drive improvements across the platform. You will partner closely with Engineering, Product, and Program teams to integrate new autonomy capabilities, evaluate feature completeness, and ensure customers can efficiently build, test, and deploy mission-ready autonomous systems. This position bridges technical leadership, engineering execution, and real-world autonomy applications—ensuring our platform empowers customers to build reliable, world-class autonomous systems.
What you'll do:
- Mentor, and develop a team of engineers focused on software integration, system validation, and developer experience.
- Establish team priorities, drive execution, and foster a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous improvement.
- Actively contribute to system integration, validation, and debugging activities and develop deep expertise in our autonomy stack.
- Guide the architecture and implementation of integration frameworks, deployment workflows, and configuration management tools that streamline validation across Software-in-the-Loop (SIL), Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL), and flight environments.
- Review system logs, telemetry, and rosbag data to diagnose integration defects
- Lead cross-functional investigations, establish corrective actions, and create tooling that accelerates debugging and issue resolution.
- Ensure integrated capabilities meet product requirements and interface specifications.
Required qualifications:
- Typically requires a minimum of 7 years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree in CS, Comp Eng, Robotics, or a related field; or 6 years and a master’s degree; or 4 years with a PhD.
- Proficiency in programming languages including Python or C++.
- Experience with autonomous systems or middleware.
- Demonstrated experience designing integration workflows, communicating system dependencies, and triaging and reporting integration defects across subsystem boundaries.
- Strong problem-solving skills and a proven track record of delivering high-quality software solutions.
- Excellent communication skills, capable of collaborating effectively across various teams and presenting to customers or technical leadership.
- Experience leading software integration engineers and owning integration roadmaps and release schedules
Preferred qualifications:
- Demonstrated experience building complex systems with a strong understanding of software architecture and design principles.
- Experience with hardware or embedded systems.
- Expert knowledge of Python.
- Experience with ROS.
- Experience with white box testing
- Familiarity with networking, operating-systems, and radio communications.
- Experience supporting customer applications
Skills Required
- Minimum 7 years related experience with a BS (6 years with MS; 4 years with PhD)
- Proficiency in programming languages including Python or C++
- Experience with autonomous systems or middleware
- Experience designing integration workflows and triaging integration defects across subsystem boundaries
- Strong problem-solving skills and proven track record delivering high-quality software
- Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams and present to customers or technical leadership
- Experience leading software integration engineers and owning integration roadmaps and release schedules
- Experience building complex systems with strong software architecture and design principles
- Experience with hardware or embedded systems
- Expert knowledge of Python
- Experience with ROS
- Experience with white box testing
- Familiarity with networking, operating systems, and radio communications
- Experience supporting customer applications
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage includes medical, dental, vision, and mental-health support, with company materials describing excellent coverage. Feedback suggests these offerings are comprehensive and consistently highlighted across official and third-party benefit lists.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity is granted to all full-time hires, with RSU structures and tools like Carta Tax intended to improve understanding and tax timing. Feedback suggests this broad-based ownership approach is a notable component of total rewards.
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Parental & Family Support — Benefits include paid parental leave, fertility support, childcare benefits, family medical leave, and onsite resources such as a Mother's Room. Feedback suggests the family-oriented offerings are more expansive than basic coverage.
Shield AI Insights
What We Do
At Shield AI, you won't wait years to see your work reach the field. You'll build hardware and software that operates in the real world right now, in the hands of the people who depend on it. Hivemind, our AI pilot, has been flying since 2018. It has flown more than 30 platforms, including an F-16, and it now sits under a U.S. Air Force production contract for Collaborative Combat Aircraft. When you write code or shape a system here, you contribute to technology with a proven flight record and a clear production future. V-BAT flies intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions with an operational record that stretches from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific. It delivers eyes where they matter most, in the most demanding conditions on earth. The teams behind it watch their work get tested where the stakes are real. X-BAT takes its first flight this year. It's an AI-piloted fighter that needs no runway, built to operate where traditional aircraft can't. Join now and you help shape a program at its earliest, most formative stage. That's the kind of ground-floor work that defines a career. Do the most impactful work of your life, on problems that matter. Autonomy at this level asks a lot of you. You'll take on problems in perception, planning, and control that few teams anywhere are equipped to solve. You'll work across disciplines, from aerospace and robotics to machine learning and systems engineering, alongside people who hold themselves to an exacting standard and expect the same from you. Our mission is clear: protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. That purpose runs through every decision, every design review, and every deployment. It's why the work here carries a weight you can feel. Ready to join our mission? Explore our open roles and find where you fit.
Why Work With Us
Founded in 2015 by a former Navy SEAL, Shield AI builds AI pilots and uncrewed aircraft. Veterans aren't an afterthought here, they're at every level. It's why the work carries weight: AI pilots and uncrewed aircraft flying real missions, from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific, protecting service members and civilians.
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Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
