The team focuses on creating intuitive, robust, and scalable software solutions that integrate seamlessly with existing systems, ensuring that aircraft users and customers experience enhanced product operability and usability.
As a Solutions Software Engineering Manager, you will lead a team responsible for the architecture, design, and development of integrated software applications that deploy software updates and optimize in-house flight operations.
What you'll do:
- Lead and support the team in designing and implementing reliable systems for delivering OTA software updates to internal fleet & customers, ensuring software across aircraft systems remains current and functional without disrupting ongoing operations.
- Oversee development of interactive software applications that simulate aircraft operations for training & demo purposes, enabling operators to safely and effectively familiarize themselves with new features and functionalities.
- Guide the development of maintenance software and operator-facing applications that help staff track, schedule, and perform maintenance activities efficiently, ensuring aircraft readiness and reliability for flight operations.
- Support and review enhancements to tools that collect, process, and analyze flight data, providing actionable insights that improve flight safety, efficiency, and compliance with regulatory standards.
- Lead the design and release of applications that optimize daily Customer Success and Production operations.
- Coordinate closely with DevOps, Simulation, and Integration & Test teams to ensure all software solutions integrate smoothly with existing systems, maintain system integrity and performance, and reduce code duplication.
- Collaborate with the GCS team to deliver customer-facing user interfaces on top of solutions for training, field maintenance, and OTA updates.
- Ensure the team delivers software that meets industry standards and customer requirements, including implementing appropriate security measures and testing practices to uphold operational integrity.
Required qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
- 6+ years of experience in software development, working on complex or distributed systems
- 1+ years of experience leading projects or managing engineers
- Strong proficiency in Python and/or C++
- Experience designing and building software for deployment systems, data processing, or user-facing applications
- Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams such as DevOps, Integration & Test, or similar
- Experience delivering reliable, secure, and performant software systems
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience with OTA software update systems or fleet-wide software deployment
- Experience developing simulation or training applications
- Experience building maintenance or operator-facing workflow tools
- Experience working with flight data or similar operational data systems
- Familiarity with integrating software across multiple systems and environments
- Experience working in high-reliability, safety-critical, or operational environments
- Experience working with or supporting testing, validation, or integration efforts
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience
- 6+ years of software development experience with complex or distributed systems
- 1+ years leading projects or managing engineers
- Strong proficiency in Python and/or C++
- Experience designing and building deployment systems, data processing, or user-facing applications
- Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams such as DevOps, Integration & Test
- Experience delivering reliable, secure, and performant software systems
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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Shield AI Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
