Job Description
This position may be based in San Diego, CA; Dallas, TX; Washington, D.C.; or other Shield AI locations.
Shield AI is seeking a Staff Platform Engineer to help design and implement the internal technology platforms that power our engineering, autonomy, and enterprise operations environments.
In this highly technical individual contributor role, you will serve as a senior technical expert responsible for designing and evolving scalable, secure, and highly automated platform infrastructure spanning cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments. You will work closely with engineering, security, and infrastructure teams to establish platform architecture, develop paved paths for developers, and implement automation that improves reliability, security, and development productivity across engineering teams.
This role is ideal for an experienced platform engineer who thrives at the intersection of systems architecture, automation, and developer enablement, and who enjoys building the foundational systems that allow engineering organizations to move quickly and safely.
What you'll do:
Platform Architecture & Engineering
* Build and evolve scalable internal platform infrastructure supporting engineering workloads across public cloud, private cloud, and on-prem environments.
* Design and implement platform capabilities that enable standardized, secure, and repeatable application deployment of applications and services.
* Develop and maintain infrastructure-as-code frameworks and reusable platform modules to accelerate engineering productivity.
* Establish and evolve “paved path” platform patterns that simplify secure software delivery for engineering teams.
Automation & Developer Enablement
* Build automation and developer tooling that improves software delivery and engineering productivity.
* Contribute to and improve CI/CD pipelines, artifact management, and developer platform tooling.
* Collaborate with engineering teams to reduce operational friction and improve system observability, resilience, and reliability.
* Develop internal tools, platform integrations, and automation frameworks that streamline engineering workflows across the organization.
Infrastructure & Systems Engineering
* Design, implement, and operate highly available infrastructure platforms supporting mission-critical engineering systems.
* Implement scalable platform solutions across cloud and on-prem environments including compute, networking, identity, and storage.
* Partner with security teams to embed strong security controls, auditability, and compliance requirements into platform architectures.
* Evaluate and introduce new technologies that improve system scalability, security, and operational efficiency.
Required Qualifications:
* 8+ years of experience in platform engineering, DevOps, infrastructure engineering, or site reliability engineering roles supporting large-scale systems.
* Deep hands-on experience designing, building and operating cloud or hybrid infrastructure platforms, including networking, identity, compute, and storage systems.
* Strong expertise with Infrastructure as Code and automation frameworks (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, or similar).
* Experience building or improving CI/CD pipelines, developer platform tooling, and automated deployment workflows.
* Strong systems engineering background across Linux-based environments, distributed systems, and infrastructure automation using scripting or programming languages (Python, Go, Bash, PowerShell, etc.).
* Demonstrated ability to understand, build, and own complex platform initiatives and collaborate across engineering and infrastructure teams.
* Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence technical direction across multiple engineering teams.
Preferred Qualifications:
* Experience with Kubernetes and modern container platforms.
* ·Experience deploying infrastructure across commercial and government cloud environments, including AWS and Azure.
* Familiarity with DevSecOps practices and integrating security controls into automated infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines.
* Experience implementing observability platforms, including centralized logging, monitoring, and distributed tracing for large-scale systems.
* Experience working within defense, aerospace, or other regulated industries, including familiarity with frameworks such as NIST or FedRAMP.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
- 8+ years of experience in platform engineering, DevOps, infrastructure engineering, or site reliability engineering supporting large-scale systems
- Hands-on experience designing, building, and operating cloud or hybrid infrastructure platforms, including networking, identity, compute, and storage
- Strong expertise with Infrastructure as Code and automation frameworks such as Terraform or Ansible
- Experience building or improving CI/CD pipelines, developer platform tooling, and automated deployment workflows
- Systems engineering experience across Linux environments, distributed systems, and infrastructure automation using scripting or programming languages
- Ability to understand, build, and own complex platform initiatives while collaborating across engineering and infrastructure teams
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence technical direction across multiple engineering teams
- Experience building or operating internal developer platforms or engineering productivity platforms
- Experience with Kubernetes and modern container platforms
- Experience deploying infrastructure across commercial and government cloud environments, including AWS and Azure
- Familiarity with DevSecOps practices and integrating security controls into infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines
- Experience implementing observability platforms, including centralized logging, monitoring, and distributed tracing
- Experience in defense, aerospace, or regulated industries and familiarity with NIST or FedRAMP
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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Shield AI Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
