Shield AI builds intelligent systems that protect service members and civilians. Our products include Hivemind autonomy software and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and our teams support customers and operations across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.
Shield AI is hiring a Senior Customer Sustainment Engineer to support Hivemind systems after they reach customers and operational teams. This role sits at the intersection of customer support, systems troubleshooting, and engineering.
Customers and forward deployed employees bring valuable operational context when they report a mission interruption, update concern, or unexpected system behavior. You will work with them to translate that context into a clear technical problem by gathering the right evidence, understanding the operating environment, narrowing the likely causes, and identifying the best path to resolution.
Some issues will be resolved through configuration changes, deployment corrections, known workarounds, or better guidance. Others will require a product or engineering change. In either case, you will stay with the issue through resolution, keep the customer informed, and make sure the outcome is captured for future use.
The role is the primary owner for Tier 1 support, handles a meaningful portion of Tier 2 troubleshooting, and can contribute to limited Tier 3 investigation when deeper technical experience is useful. Using DoD sustainment language, this is roughly the software equivalent of intermediate-level maintenance: resolve what can be addressed at that level, identify what needs depot-level repair, and provide engineering with a complete technical handoff. Product Support and core engineering teams provide the depot-level repair capability, while this role stays engaged to validate the result and close the loop with the customer.
You will work closely with Forward Deployment Engineering, Product Support Engineering, Operations & Sustainment, Product, Program, Licensing, and the core Hivemind engineering teams. The goal is straightforward: help customers return to mission-ready operation while making Hivemind easier to support over time.
What you'll do:
Own Tier 1 customer support and incident coordination from initial report through confirmed resolution.
Gather the information needed to understand an issue, including mission impact, software version, configuration, deployment state, logs, telemetry, screenshots, network context, and reproduction steps.
Troubleshoot Hivemind software, APIs, licensing and provisioning, deployments, configurations, networks, operator workflows, and partner or OEM integrations.
Separate product defects from configuration problems, environmental differences, integration issues, training needs, and feature requests.
Resolve common technical problems, handle appropriate Tier 2 investigations, and reproduce more complex failures in lab, simulation, or representative test environments.
Recognize issues that require Tier 3 or depot-level product repair and give engineering teams concise escalation packages that explain the impact, evidence, likely causes, work already attempted, and expected result.
Provide customers with clear updates, practical next steps, and technically sound workarounds while investigations are in progress.
Support software releases, upgrades, onboarding, licensing and provisioning workflows, and the transition from deployment into ongoing sustainment.
Turn recurring issues into troubleshooting guides, known-issue records, diagnostic tools, training material, and product feedback.
Use incident patterns to identify improvements to product reliability, diagnostics, documentation, and release readiness.
Projects you may work on:
Investigate a mission failure after a software update by comparing logs, configurations, versions, network behavior, telemetry, and release notes.
Reproduce an autonomy, API, or integration issue and provide engineering with the evidence needed to correct it.
Restore an offline customer environment affected by licensing, provisioning, time synchronization, or version compatibility.
Coordinate the technical response to a high-impact customer issue and validate the workaround or fix before closure.
Build a diagnostic playbook for recurring deployment, configuration, networking, or operator-workflow problems.
Required qualifications:
Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical, military, field-engineering, or technical experience.
7+ years of hands-on experience supporting fielded, software-enabled systems in customer, operational, test, deployment, or sustainment environments.
Experience with cyber-physical, edge, mission, robotics, autonomy, aviation, defense, industrial-control, or similarly complex deployed systems.
Strong troubleshooting skills across software, Linux, configuration, networking, logs, telemetry, software versions, and hardware-adjacent interfaces.
A record of owning technical issues from an incomplete initial report through diagnosis and resolution.
Ability to read and reason about modern C++ and use existing Python, Bash, or similar scripts during troubleshooting and log analysis.
Clear written and verbal communication with customers, operators, and engineering teams, including during time-sensitive situations.
Ability to write useful incident records, troubleshooting guidance, engineering escalations, and customer-facing updates.
Sound judgment when working within security, export-control, safety, customer-site, contractual, and data-handling requirements.
Ability to possess a Secret DoD security clearance when required by customers.
Preferred qualifications:
Experience with autonomy software, robotics, unmanned systems, aviation, defense or mission software, ground-control software, SDKs, APIs, or edge-deployed systems.
Experience supporting fleet operations, operational-readiness events, flight or ground test campaigns, or customer-site deployments.
Familiarity with DoD sustainment, intermediate- and depot-level maintenance concepts, or comparable field-to-engineering support models.
Hands-on software engineering experience writing and debugging C++ and developing Python scripts or tools for diagnostics, automation, or data analysis.
Familiarity with software releases, configuration baselines, upgrade validation, rollback, and version compatibility.
Experience with licensing, provisioning, offline or air-gapped environments, edge compute, time synchronization, networking, or telemetry analysis.
Experience with Jira, Azure DevOps, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Zendesk, Confluence, or similar engineering and support tools.
Military, operator, maintainer, field-service, mission-support, or customer-engineering experience.
Active or prior security clearance.
You can independently manage Tier 1 Hivemind support, resolve appropriate Tier 2 problems, and bring well-supported Tier 3 or depot-level cases to the appropriate engineering team.
Customers and internal teams receive clear updates, practical next steps, and consistent follow-through.
Your escalation packages allow engineering teams to begin useful work without repeating basic discovery.
Common field issues have repeatable diagnostics, workarounds, and support guidance.
Forward Deployment Engineers and core engineers spend less time reconstructing customer problems because the evidence and technical qualification are already in place.
Incident trends are leading to improvements in Hivemind reliability, supportability, documentation, and release readiness.
Success looks like
After 90 days
After 6 months
Skills Required
- 7+ years of experience in technical customer support, fleet support, field support, software support, systems integration, applications engineering, technical operations, or a similar customer-facing technical role.
- Strong troubleshooting mindset and ability to turn ambiguous customer reports into structured, actionable support cases.
- Working knowledge of Linux systems, logs, configuration files, networking basics, software versions, and diagnostic workflows.
- Ability to read and reason about C++ code.
- Ability to understand software behavior across customer workflows, APIs, deployment state, configuration, and integration context.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills in customer-facing and cross-functional environments, including calm communication during high-pressure support situations.
- Ability to manage ticket hygiene, severity, ownership, customer updates, evidence requests, escalation paths, and support boundaries with discipline.
- Ability to write concise support notes, troubleshooting guides, known-issue summaries, and customer-safe status updates.
- Comfort operating within export-control, security, sensitive-data, customer-site, safety, commercial, and support-boundary requirements.
- Ability to possess a Secret DoD security clearance as required by customers.
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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