What you'll do:
- Own platform integration across SIL, HIL, VIL, and edge deployment workflows, ensuring components work together reliably and are easy for developers to use.
- Build and maintain reference work spaces, platform reference implementations, and tooling that accelerate development, testing, deployment, and validation.
- Integrate platform-level software across hardware, sensors, controllers, APIs, configuration, orchestration, and fleet/device management systems.
- Support embedded platform bring-up and hardware diversification across developer boards, iron birds, aircraft/vehicle test platforms, and other reference hardware.
- Improve platform stability, API quality, developer experience, and system scalability for mission-critical product and customer commitments.
- Partner with autonomy, hardware, product, and program teams to identify integration gaps and deliver durable solutions.
Required qualifications:
- 5+ years experience with strong software engineering experience in robotics, autonomy, embedded systems, distributed systems, or similarly complex platforms.
- Strong experience with C++ and Python and experience building developer tools, configuration systems, orchestration frameworks, or automation.
- Experience integrating and debugging software across Linux-based systems, hardware interfaces, deployment environments, and APIs, including use of measurement or diagnostic tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, or protocol analyzers to debug embedded communication interfaces.
- B.S. or Master’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related field
- Ability to work independently in ambiguous technical areas and drive cross-functional integration efforts to completion.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience with SIL, HIL, and VIL workflows for autonomy, robotics, aerospace, automotive, or defense systems.
- Experience with embedded Linux, BSP development, build systems, device trees, bootloaders, or hardware bring-up.
- Experience with edge deployment, device discovery, fleet management, OTA workflows, or application deployment to remote devices.
- Experience with platforms such as Jetson, Qualcomm, i.MX8, or similar embedded compute hardware.
- Experience integrating sensor drivers, controller interfaces, vehicle interfaces, hardware abstraction layers, or reference test platforms.
Skills Required
- 5+ years software engineering experience in robotics, autonomy, embedded systems, distributed systems, or similar complex platforms
- Strong experience with C++ and Python and experience building developer tools, configuration systems, orchestration frameworks, or automation
- Experience integrating and debugging software across Linux-based systems, hardware interfaces, deployment environments, and APIs, including use of diagnostic tools (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers)
- B.S. or Master's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related field
- Ability to work independently in ambiguous technical areas and drive cross-functional integration efforts to completion
- Strong communication and collaboration skills
- Experience with SIL, HIL, and VIL workflows for autonomy, robotics, aerospace, automotive, or defense systems
- Experience with embedded Linux, BSP development, build systems, device trees, bootloaders, or hardware bring-up
- Experience with edge deployment, device discovery, fleet management, OTA workflows, or application deployment to remote devices
- Experience with platforms such as Jetson, Qualcomm, i.MX8, or similar embedded compute hardware
- Experience integrating sensor drivers, controller interfaces, vehicle interfaces, hardware abstraction layers, or reference test platforms
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Company materials describe excellent medical, dental, and vision coverage alongside a mental‑health EAP. Site perks such as an onsite gym in DC and a gym discount in San Diego support a health‑focused offering.
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Retirement Support — Careers materials highlight a 401(k) with company match as part of the standard package. A Total Rewards overview emphasizes retirement features within a broader, transparent compensation view.
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Career-Linked Recognition & Rewards — Compensation for in‑demand technical and senior go‑to‑market roles is described as competitive, with visible engineering ranges and top‑end packages. This points to meaningful upside tied to role, level, and scarce skills.
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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Shield AI Teams
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Shield AI Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
