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Our mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems.
The Role
Lead the Developer Experience team to enhance developer productivity, manage performance, and drive strategic direction for engineering workflows and tools.
Summary Generated by Built In
Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed deep-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With nine offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
Job Description:
The Developer Experience team seeks to improve the development velocity of Hivemind teams via feedback and support with the developers, development of internal tools, and the optimization of workflows and guidelines. This means owning build architecture, developer tools, defining metrics & signals, and deciding what strategic bets the company should take to improve the software quality and quantity. The DevEx Manager will lead this team as they work with software engineers to understand their development process and identify places to improve. These decisions impact all Hivemind engineers!
If Developer Experience is new to you, read this!
What you'll do:
- Lead and grow the DevEx team — coach and develop engineers, manage performance, and foster a culture of operational excellence, user empathy, and continuous improvement.
- Set strategic direction for the Developer Experience function, in partnership with Software Operations and engineering leadership. This includes defining priorities, making technical trade-offs, and aligning with company-wide goals.
- Own the developer productivity roadmap, including build system reliability, CI/CD optimization, developer tooling, and standardization of engineering workflows and guidelines.
- Drive cross-functional collaboration, working closely with engineering teams to understand friction points, gather feedback, and ensure DevEx efforts are solving real and impactful problems.
- Ensure observability of developer productivity by defining and interpreting metrics and signals that measure engineering health, software quality, and development velocity.
- Oversee architecture decisions related to internal tooling and infrastructure that supports scalable and efficient software development.
- Represent the voice of developers in engineering planning by championing ease-of-use, system resilience, and feedback loops within Hivemind’s developer ecosystem.
Required qualifications:
- 10+ years of experience in Software Engineering, or equivalent engineering roles
- 3+ years of people leadership experience
- Strong understanding of C++ (or other compiled language), Linux and CMake
- Experience with AWS public cloud infrastructure
- B.S. or Master’s degree in Engineering or related field
- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
- You are organized and methodical
- You have a demonstrated record of working hard, being a trustworthy teammate, holding yourself and others to high standards, and being kind to others
Preferred qualifications:
- Knowledge and experience of Rust
- Experience with Conan Package Manager (Conan 2 preferred)
- Experience building production ready developer tools from scratch
- Experience with drones or automated vehicles
- Experience in other similar DevOps/DevEx roles, with hands on implementation
Full-time regular employee offer package:
Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
Temporary employee offer package:
Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment)
Salary 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. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information.
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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.
Top Skills
AWS
C++
Cmake
Conan Package Manager
Linux
Rust
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The Company
What We Do
Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense technology company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include the V-BAT aircraft, Hivemind Enterprise, and the Hivemind Vision product lines. With offices in San Diego, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Boston, Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kyiv (Ukraine), and Melbourne (Australia), Shield AI’s technology actively supports U.S. and allied operations worldwide.
Why Work With Us
What makes Shield AI special is our people. We unlock the power of autonomy, and in the face of overwhelming odds and challenges, we find ways to win and make a difference for our customers. We bring together software, AI, and aerospace engineering disciplines to deploy the most intelligent aviation capabilities in the world.
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