The Hivemind Simulation team provides the simulation capabilities that power the AI Factory’s training and evaluation for the next generation autonomous AI pilots. The Simulation Platform team builds the simulation framework and foundational infrastructure that allows engineers to bring together simulators, scale experiments, and confidently evaluate autonomy before flight. The team’s work enables simulation applications to build on a shared, performant, and extensible foundation. Our guiding principle is simple: autonomy should not know it is in a simulation.
As a Staff Software Engineer on the Simulation Platform team, you will shape how autonomous pilots are tested by building and integrating simulators and developing Monte Carlo infrastructure. Drawing on experience building and running real-time aircraft simulations, you will enable teams to evaluate autonomy, guidance, navigation, and control (GNC), and runtime assurance (RTA) systems at scale. This individual contributor role includes driving technical direction and mentoring engineers.
What you'll do:
- Grow the simulation framework’s ecosystem by integrating existing simulators and established standards, and by build new ones where needs are identified.
- Build reusable Monte Carlo infrastructure for parameterization, execution, reproducibility, and collection of results across large simulation campaigns.
- Develop multithreaded and multi-process simulation capabilities, addressing synchronization, timing, state exchange, and performance.
- Partner with autonomy, GNC, and RTA engineers as well as operators in the field to translate evaluation needs into simulation interfaces and infrastructure.
- Support platform specific performance validation using physics models (e.g, 6DoF, 3DoF, etc.).
- Set technical direction, lead design reviews, and mentor engineers in simulation architecture and production software development.
Required qualifications:
- Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 9 years with a Master’s degree; or 7 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
- Strong proficiency in C++, with demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and maintaining production performance-critical software.
- Demonstrated experience building and running multithreaded/multiprocess real-time simulations involving aircraft dynamics.
- Experience both developing Monte Carlo infrastructure and using it to design, execute, and analyze simulation campaigns.
- Demonstrated ability to drive technical decisions, mentor engineers, and collaborate across software and domain engineering teams.
- Experience developing software/simulation under a defined V&V lifecycle
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience supporting airworthiness certification efforts, including developing simulation evidence for verification, validation, and safety assessment (e.g., DO-178C, MIL-HDBK-516C).
- Strong Python skills for simulation tooling, experiment automation, and analysis.
- Experience with distributed simulation and model interoperability standards such as HLA, DIS, and FMI/FMU.
- Experience with industry-standard simulation tools such as JSBSim, FlightGear, X-Plane, Gazebo, Isaac Sim, or Simulink, or equivalent environments.
- Experience with closed-loop autonomy simulation, including sensor inputs and interfaces between autonomy and the simulated environment.
- Experience with uncertainty modeling, statistical analysis, and scenario coverage for Monte Carlo evaluation.
- Testing / Operating Safety Critical Software (e.g., DO-178C)
Skills Required
- Minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree, 9 years with a Master's degree, 7 years with a PhD, or equivalent experience.
- Strong proficiency in C++ and experience designing, implementing, and maintaining production performance-critical software.
- Experience building and running multithreaded or multiprocess real-time simulations involving aircraft dynamics.
- Experience developing Monte Carlo infrastructure and using it to design, execute, and analyze simulation campaigns.
- Ability to drive technical decisions, mentor engineers, and collaborate across software and domain engineering teams.
- Experience developing software or simulations under a defined verification and validation lifecycle.
- Experience supporting airworthiness certification efforts, including simulation evidence for verification, validation, and safety assessment using standards such as DO-178C or MIL-HDBK-516C.
- Strong Python skills for simulation tooling, experiment automation, and analysis.
- Experience with distributed simulation and model interoperability standards such as HLA, DIS, and FMI/FMU.
- Experience with simulation tools such as JSBSim, FlightGear, X-Plane, Gazebo, Isaac Sim, or Simulink.
- Experience with closed-loop autonomy simulation, including sensor inputs and autonomy-to-environment interfaces.
- Experience with uncertainty modeling, statistical analysis, and scenario coverage for Monte Carlo evaluation.
- Experience testing or operating safety-critical software, such as software developed under DO-178C.
What the Team is Saying
Shield AI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Company materials highlight comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with mental-health support and an EAP. Third-party benefits summaries also portray health coverage as a strong component of the package.
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Retirement Support — Offerings include a 401(k) with employer matching, cited on the careers page and independent benefits directories. Multiple sources indicate a match exists, though exact formulas have varied over time and warrant confirmation.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Company communications describe equity for all full-time hires and stock benefits as part of total rewards. Independent listings also note company equity/RSUs as a standard element.
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.
