Hivemind is looking for an experienced Senior or Staff Software Engineer to join our Developer Experience Engineering team.
The Developer Experience team owns the tools, platforms, and practices that shape how engineers build software for Hivemind. This includes local development environments, devcontainers, our internal developer platform, project templates, and approaches that enable co-development and inner-source collaboration across engineering teams.
You will build tools and paved paths that make development faster, more consistent, and more reliable. A near-term focus for this role will be bringing agentic AI capabilities into our developer tools and workflows in ways that deliver meaningful, measurable value to engineers.
This is a hands-on engineering role with broad organizational impact. You will partner directly with developers, identify recurring sources of friction, turn ambiguous needs into durable solutions, and drive adoption through documentation, advocacy, and close collaboration. You will care about engineering productivity and use signals such as DORA metrics and developer feedback to guide priorities and measure outcomes.
This position may be filled at the Senior or Staff level based on the candidate’s experience, demonstrated technical leadership, and scope of impact.
What you'll do:
- Design, build, and operate tools and platforms that improve the end-to-end Hivemind developer experience
- Advance local development workflows, devcontainers, internal developer platforms, project templates, and other reusable engineering capabilities
- Bring agentic AI capabilities into developer tools and workflows, evaluating opportunities and turning promising ideas into reliable, practical solutions
- Partner with engineering teams to understand developer needs, identify recurring friction, and create paved paths that improve productivity without limiting appropriate flexibility
- Enable co-development and inner-source collaboration through accessible tooling, documentation, standards, and contribution practices
- Drive adoption of developer tools by working closely with engineers, gathering feedback, providing guidance, and clearly communicating their value
- Own solutions through discovery, design, implementation, testing, deployment, operation, and continuous improvement
- Use DORA metrics, developer feedback, adoption data, and other signals to understand outcomes and guide investment
- Contribute to technical direction through design reviews, architectural decisions, thoughtful tradeoffs, and collaboration across engineering teams
- At the Staff level, lead cross-team initiatives, establish longer-term technical direction, and influence how Hivemind approaches developer productivity at organizational scale
Required qualifications:
- 4+ years of software engineering experience or equivalent practical experience
- Demonstrated technical judgment in the design and operation of developer tools, platforms, backend services, APIs, distributed systems, or related production software
- Experience owning software from initial design through deployment, operation, adoption, and continuous improvement
- Systems thinking and the ability to turn recurring or ambiguous developer needs into coherent, reusable solutions
- Strong customer orientation toward internal developers and an interest in understanding and improving how engineering work gets done
- Effective collaboration and communication across engineering teams and organizational stakeholders
- Ability to advocate for new tools and practices, incorporate feedback, and build adoption through influence
- Experience with AWS and cloud-native development practices
- Experience with Git, GitLab, Backstage, or similar developer-platform technologies
Preferred qualifications:
- For Staff-level consideration, a demonstrated record of leading technically complex, cross-team initiatives and shaping technical direction beyond an immediate team
- Experience building or operating internal developer platforms, developer portals, development environments, or reusable engineering frameworks
- Experience applying AI or agentic systems to software development tools and workflows
- Proficiency in one or more relevant languages, such as Python, Go, JavaScript, or TypeScript/Node.js
- Experience with devcontainers, project scaffolding, service templates, or standardized local development environments
- Experience enabling inner-source development or contribution across team boundaries
- Familiarity with DORA metrics, developer productivity measurement, and qualitative developer-experience research
Skills Required
- 4+ years of software engineering experience or equivalent practical experience
- Technical judgment designing and operating developer tools, platforms, backend services, APIs, distributed systems, or related production software
- Experience owning software from initial design through deployment, operation, adoption, and continuous improvement
- Systems thinking and ability to turn ambiguous developer needs into reusable solutions
- Strong internal customer orientation and interest in improving engineering workflows
- Effective collaboration and communication across engineering teams and stakeholders
- Ability to advocate for tools and practices, incorporate feedback, and build adoption through influence
- Experience with AWS and cloud-native development practices
- Experience with Git, GitLab, Backstage, or similar developer-platform technologies
- For Staff-level consideration, experience leading technically complex cross-team initiatives and shaping technical direction beyond an immediate team
- Experience building or operating internal developer platforms, developer portals, development environments, or reusable engineering frameworks
- Experience applying AI or agentic systems to software development tools and workflows
- Proficiency in Python, Go, JavaScript, or TypeScript/Node.js
- Experience with devcontainers, project scaffolding, service templates, or standardized local development environments
- Experience enabling inner-source development or cross-team contribution
- Familiarity with DORA metrics, developer productivity measurement, and qualitative developer-experience research
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is described as excellent, with dental/vision and mental‑health support, and ancillary protections like life and disability appearing in benefit summaries. The breadth and perceived affordability of coverage are highlighted as a standout component of the package.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave is featured alongside enhanced maternity benefits, fertility and childcare support, and onsite resources such as a Mother’s Room. These elements are positioned as competitive and above the minimal baseline for the company’s stage.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity is granted to all full‑time hires, with RSUs, double‑trigger tax timing, and tools to model scenarios (e.g., through Carta Tax). Communications also reference a transition from options to RSUs, reinforcing access and maturity of ownership programs.
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.
