Shield AI is a defense technology company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. We build autonomy systems for air, maritime, space, and other platforms operating in complex and contested environments.
Forge is the engineering platform used to build, integrate, test, and operate Hivemind capabilities. It connects autonomy developers with the applications, services, compute, data, and workflows they need to move from local development to deployed systems.
The RoleWe are looking for a full-stack engineer with strong frontend expertise who enjoys building customer-facing products, developer tools, and AI-assisted workflows. Your primary focus will be designing and building intuitive, responsive applications in TypeScript and React, with backend development and service integration as needed to deliver complete workflows.
You will partner with internal subject-matter experts to build Forge applications for simulation, synthetic data generation, test and evaluation, and autonomy performance. You will use shared platform components and design application extension points that let downstream teams specialize these workflows.
Shield AI’s internal Hivemind Pilot developers and Hivemind Solutions groups are your primary design partners. You will work directly with them to understand requirements, evaluate solutions, and improve the user experience through real use.
Your work will help engineers understand complex systems, accelerate the development of autonomy software, and deliver reliable systems faster.
What you'll do:
- Design and build frontend experiences in TypeScript and React for autonomy development workflows such as simulation, synthetic data generation, and test and evaluation.
- Translate complex technical workflows into intuitive apps and workflows.
- Partner with Hivemind Pilot developers, Hivemind Solutions teams, product, and design to understand user needs and improve applications through feedback.
- Use Forge’s UI Platform to deliver consistent application experiences and drive improvements through collaborating on concrete requirements.
- Integrate domain APIs and services, building or extending backend capabilities as needed to complete application workflows.
- Design reusable application components and extension points that let other teams specialize workflows.
Key outcomes:
- Hivemind teams adopt Forge applications that make it easier to develop, integrate, test, and diagnose autonomy capabilities.
- Engineers can complete workflows across domain services through coherent application experiences, with clear progress, results, and paths to investigate failures.
- Applications behave reliably across supported local, cluster, edge, and air-gapped environments.
- Other teams can extend and specialize application workflows through documented APIs and extension points.
- Engineers and AI agents can use application capabilities with appropriate permissions, visibility, and user control.
Required qualifications:
- Experience delivering and supporting production web applications, with substantial ownership of frontend architecture and user experience.
- Strong proficiency with TypeScript and React, including component design, state management, asynchronous data handling, routing, auth, and web architecture.
- Ability to translate complex technical workflows into intuitive interfaces in collaboration with users, subject-matter experts, and designers.
- Experience building responsive, accessible interfaces and diagnosing frontend performance issues with profiling.
- Experience integrating APIs and handling loading states, errors, long-running operations, and evolving service contracts.
- Ability to work across the stack, including reading, debugging, and extending backend services in Go, Python, or a comparable language.
- Experience testing UI components, application behavior, and complete user workflows.
- Sound judgment about when to use shared platform capabilities, contribute reusable improvements, or keep a solution specific to an application.
- Clear communication skills and the ability to collaborate across product, design, platform, and domain teams.
Preferred qualifications:
- Developer tools or technical applications for simulation, experimentation, test and evaluation, or deployment.
- Complex interactive interfaces such as scientific visualizations, workflow editors, large data tables, or live telemetry displays.
- Frontend performance optimization for large datasets, frequent updates, or computationally intensive views.
- Applications built on extensible platforms, including plugin systems, micro-frontends, Web Components, or VS Code extensions.
- Schema-driven API development using OpenAPI, JSON Schema, Protocol Buffers, or generated clients.
- Service and device integration using REST, gRPC, WebSockets, MQTT, DDS, MAVLink, or patterns such as pub/sub messaging and streaming telemetry.
- AI-assisted application workflows and agent-tool integrations using protocols such as Model Context Protocol.
- Familiarity with robotics, autonomy, simulation, or embedded systems, particularly integrating with underlying services, platforms, or devices.
Why join us:
- Connect your work directly to the mission. The applications you build help engineers develop, validate, and deliver autonomy software at scale.
- Own the experience engineers use every day. Shape how users interact with complex autonomy systems, with primary ownership of frontend development and the ability to carry improvements through backend integration.
- Influence the platform through real applications. Turn workflow needs into shared workflow capabilities that benefit the broader Hivemind ecosystem.
- Build alongside engaged users. Partner directly with AI/ML/sim domain experts, learn how they work, and see the effect of your decisions.
- Shape AI-assisted engineering workflows. Build applications where engineers and agents can work with shared context and tools while preserving user control and accountability.
Skills Required
- Experience delivering and supporting production web applications with substantial frontend architecture and user-experience ownership
- Strong proficiency with TypeScript and React, including component design, state management, asynchronous data handling, routing, authentication, and web architecture
- Ability to translate complex technical workflows into intuitive interfaces while collaborating with users, subject-matter experts, and designers
- Experience building responsive and accessible interfaces and diagnosing frontend performance issues through profiling
- Experience integrating APIs and handling loading states, errors, long-running operations, and evolving service contracts
- Ability to read, debug, and extend backend services in Go, Python, or a comparable language
- Experience testing UI components, application behavior, and complete user workflows
- Sound judgment about using shared platform capabilities, contributing reusable improvements, or keeping solutions application-specific
- Clear communication and collaboration skills across product, design, platform, and domain teams
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Company materials highlight comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with mental-health support and an EAP. Third-party benefits summaries also portray health coverage as a strong component of the package.
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Retirement Support — Offerings include a 401(k) with employer matching, cited on the careers page and independent benefits directories. Multiple sources indicate a match exists, though exact formulas have varied over time and warrant confirmation.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Company communications describe equity for all full-time hires and stock benefits as part of total rewards. Independent listings also note company equity/RSUs as a standard element.
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.
