What you'll do:
- Integrate perception and state-estimation software with EO/IR cameras, IMU/GNSS/PNT sensors, embedded compute, and target or surrogate platforms.
- Lead the practical fly-fix-fly loop: prepare software and hardware, verify deployment/configuration, support execution, analyze the data, and drive the next corrective action with the responsible owners.
- Establish and improve calibration, timing, configuration, data-capture, metadata, and replay practices; define the measurable test objectives and acceptance criteria that make the resulting data usable.
- Investigate anomalous behavior using logs, recorded data, configuration, and focused source review; partner with software developers on targeted fixes and regression coverage.
- Support sensor and edge-compute trade studies, bring-up, and operational readiness; drive day-to-day technical triage while escalating safety, airworthiness, and architecture decisions appropriately.
Required qualifications:
- Hands-on experience integrating and troubleshooting sensor-driven robotics or autonomy systems on physical hardware, including camera, IMU, GNSS/PNT, video, or comparable sensors.
- Experience with calibration, timestamping, configuration, data quality, or a comparable sensor-integration discipline.
- Experience defining and executing measurable test objectives, design-of-experiments activities, operational test procedures, or equivalent verification plans.
- Proficiency in Python/Matlab for analysis, visualization, and investigation of recorded test data.
- Comfort reading C++ and working with embedded Linux or edge-compute deployments to support focused debugging and integration work.
- Demonstrated ability to work across hardware, software, test, and operational stakeholders; working knowledge of at least one core perception area such as navigation, tracking, detection, navigation, SLAM, or sensor fusion.
Preferred qualifications:
- Direct experience with camera intrinsics/extrinsics, camera-to-IMU calibration, time alignment, VIO/VBN, or other sensor-fusion systems in real-world testing.
- Familiarity with capture, replay, and analysis workflows, plus EO/IR camera, optics, video-metadata, or image-quality characterization.
- Experience with NVIDIA Jetson or comparable embedded GPU hardware, camera/video pipelines, and performance profiling.
- Background supporting aviation, maritime, UAS, automotive, industrial robotics, or another operational autonomy domain; familiarity with modern C++ build, deployment, or CI environments.
This role is hybrid, based at Shield AI's San Diego, CA headquarters (three days per week in office), with periodic travel to flight test sites required.
Staff: 195,000-$290,000
Senior Staff: $230,000- $350,000
Skills Required
- Minimum 10+ years related experience (or equivalent degree/experience mix)
- Hands-on experience calibrating and time-aligning EO/IR and PNT sensors (COTS and military-grade)
- Experience operating in fast-paced field testing environments at the intersection of hardware, software, and flight operations
- Experience designing experiments, developing flight test cards, and establishing verifiable test objectives
- Experience deploying perception or autonomy software to edge hardware platforms (e.g., NVIDIA Jetson)
- Proficiency in Python for data analysis and visualization
- Comfort reading and making targeted modifications to algorithms implemented in C++
- Demonstrated academic training or professional experience in perception disciplines (detection, tracking, SLAM, or navigation)
- Proven ability to solve cross-functional hardware/software logistical and technical problems
- Experience with camera calibration frameworks (e.g., Kalibr) and camera-IMU extrinsic/temporal calibration workflows
- Familiarity with rosbag-based data collection, replay, and analysis pipelines
- Experience characterizing EO/IR gimbal cameras (MTF, distortion, radiometric properties)
- Background supporting DoD or defense aviation programs and range operations
- Familiarity with Conan, Nix, or CMake build systems and embedded Linux development
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines and test automation for embedded software
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
Gallery
%203.jpg)
Shield AI Teams
.jpg)
Shield AI Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
