Shield AI is seeking a Senior Staff C++ Software Engineer, Edge Systems to define and build the software foundations that power autonomous systems operating in demanding real-world environments.
This role sits within the Edge Systems team, where software meets hardware. You will solve complex engineering problems spanning Linux edge computing, imaging, sensor integration, mission systems, and autonomy, building software that runs on real hardware in operational environments rather than laboratory prototypes.
As a Senior Staff Engineer, you will provide technical leadership across the Edge Systems domain. You will shape architecture and long-term technical direction across multiple teams and products, lead the resolution of complex cross-cutting problems, and establish engineering approaches that improve the effectiveness of the broader organisation.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will continue to design, write, review, test, and debug production software, while focusing your individual contribution on the organisation’s highest-risk and highest-leverage technical problems.
You will develop modern C++ software for Linux-based edge compute platforms, including NVIDIA Jetson-class and ARM64 systems. Your work will span sensor integration, imaging pipelines, calibration, diagnostics, deployment, developer tooling, and mission-critical applications that demand high performance, reliability, and maintainability.
This is an application and systems software role focused on Linux-based edge computing, rather than bare-metal firmware or microcontroller development.
No two weeks look the same. One day you might be optimising image-processing pipelines on embedded GPUs. The next you could be defining architecture for future autonomous platforms, leading the integration of new sensors, or collaborating with AI researchers to bring new capabilities into production.
You will work alongside highly capable systems, hardware, autonomy, AI, product, and test engineers who enjoy solving difficult problems together. We believe our strongest technical leaders remain hands-on, and we expect our Senior Staff Engineers to continue writing software while multiplying the effectiveness of the engineers around them.
What you'll do:
- Own and evolve the technical direction of significant edge software capabilities spanning edge compute, imaging, sensor integration, and mission systems.
- Define architecture and technical strategy across multiple projects, products, and engineering teams.
- Lead the resolution of complex, ambiguous, or cross-cutting technical problems where ownership spans organisational boundaries.
- Establish reusable platform capabilities, interfaces, standards, and engineering practices adopted by multiple teams.
- Provide technical leadership for major design decisions, including their trade-offs, risks, migration strategies, and long-term consequences.
- Identify systemic technical risks and drive coordinated action before they materially affect delivery or product reliability.
- Mentor senior engineers and develop other technical leaders, increasing the capability and autonomy of the wider organisation.
- Partner with engineering, systems, autonomy, AI, product, and program leadership to translate business and product direction into sustainable technical roadmaps.
- Balance long-term platform investment, technical debt, operational risk, and near-term product delivery.
- Communicate complex technical decisions, strategy, and risks clearly to both engineering and non-engineering stakeholders.
- Design, develop, test, and maintain production C++ software for edge systems, imaging systems, mission applications, developer tooling, diagnostics, and automated testing.
- Build user-space Linux applications for NVIDIA Jetson, ARM64, and other edge compute platforms connected to cameras, sensors, and mission systems.
- Integrate RGB, NIR, and thermal cameras alongside GPS, IMU, and other sensors using operating system APIs, middleware, vendor SDKs, and hardware-facing interfaces.
- Develop calibration, synchronisation, data capture, observability, diagnostics, inspection, and configuration tools for complex sensor systems.
- Optimise software for latency, throughput, reliability, power utilisation, and thermal performance on constrained edge compute platforms.
- Debug challenging issues spanning application software, Linux, networking, hardware interfaces, timing, deployment, and system integration.
- Own technical outcomes for complex, cross-team initiatives from ambiguous problem framing through architecture, implementation, integration, verification, deployment, and sustained operation.
- Collaborate across systems, hardware, AI, autonomy, product, and test teams to deliver integrated capability.
Technical Leadership
Software Engineering
Required qualifications:
- Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related discipline, or equivalent industry experience.
- Extensive industry experience developing modern C++ software for Linux.
- Demonstrated experience developing user-space applications that interface with cameras, sensors, networking, GPUs, storage, or other hardware through operating system APIs, middleware, or vendor SDKs.
- Deep practical experience developing, profiling, and debugging software on Linux.
- Experience deploying complex C++ software to Linux-based edge compute platforms such as NVIDIA Jetson or comparable ARM64 systems.
- Strong software engineering fundamentals, including concurrency, interface design, memory management, data structures, algorithms, testing, and version control.
- Proven ability to diagnose complex issues across software, Linux, networking, timing, hardware integration, and deployment boundaries.
- Experience owning complex technical work from incomplete requirements through design, implementation, integration, verification, deployment, and support.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills across multidisciplinary engineering teams.
- A sustained record of defining architecture for large, complex, or mission-critical software systems.
- Demonstrated technical influence across multiple teams, products, or engineering disciplines.
- Leadership of complex initiatives where success depended on alignment across organisational boundaries.
- Proven technical leadership through influence, sound judgement, and credibility rather than organisational authority.
- Experience mentoring senior engineers and developing other technical leaders.
- Ownership of long-term technical strategy alongside hands-on engineering and product delivery.
- Evidence of establishing platforms, standards, interfaces, or engineering practices adopted beyond their immediate team.
- Strong judgement when balancing performance, reliability, maintainability, scalability, delivery, and operational risk.
- The ability to communicate technical strategy, decisions, and risks to senior engineering, product, and business stakeholders.
Successful Senior Staff Engineer candidates will demonstrate:
Preferred qualifications:
- Runtime-critical, multi-threaded, or performance-sensitive C++ software.
- High-throughput imaging or sensor-processing pipelines, including camera integration, ISP tuning, GStreamer, FFmpeg, OpenCV, or similar technologies.
- Hardware-accelerated processing on edge compute platforms, including NVIDIA Jetson, CUDA, GPU compute, embedded AI accelerators, or accelerated video processing.
- Integration of RGB, NIR, and thermal cameras, GPS, IMU, GPUs, or comparable peripheral hardware.
- Robotics, aerospace, defence, autonomy, unmanned systems, automotive, or other mission-critical domains.
- Systems architecture, interface design, software decomposition, reliability, maintainability, and testability.
- Low-level Linux, vendor SDKs, driver-adjacent debugging, NixOS, edge AI inference, containerisation, or application deployment tooling.
- Automated testing, simulation, software-in-the-loop, or hardware-in-the-loop environments.
Skills Required
- Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, a related discipline, or equivalent industry experience
- Extensive industry experience developing modern C++ software for Linux
- Experience developing user-space applications interfacing with cameras, sensors, networking, GPUs, storage, or other hardware
- Deep practical experience developing, profiling, and debugging software on Linux
- Experience deploying complex C++ software to Linux-based edge platforms such as NVIDIA Jetson or comparable ARM64 systems
- Strong fundamentals in concurrency, interface design, memory management, data structures, algorithms, testing, and version control
- Ability to diagnose complex issues across software, Linux, networking, timing, hardware integration, and deployment
- Experience owning technical work from incomplete requirements through design, implementation, integration, verification, deployment, and support
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills across multidisciplinary engineering teams
- Architecture experience with large, complex, or mission-critical software systems
- Technical influence across multiple teams, products, or engineering disciplines
- Experience mentoring senior engineers and developing technical leaders
- Experience with performance-sensitive or multithreaded C++ software
- Experience with imaging or sensor-processing pipelines, camera integration, ISP tuning, GStreamer, FFmpeg, OpenCV, or similar technologies
- Experience with NVIDIA Jetson, CUDA, GPU compute, embedded AI accelerators, or accelerated video processing
- Experience integrating RGB, NIR, and thermal cameras, GPS, IMU, GPUs, or comparable peripheral hardware
- Experience in robotics, aerospace, defense, autonomy, unmanned systems, automotive, or other mission-critical domains
- Experience with low-level Linux, vendor SDKs, driver-adjacent debugging, NixOS, edge AI inference, containerization, or application deployment tooling
- Experience with automated testing, simulation, software-in-the-loop, or hardware-in-the-loop environments
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.
