Manager of Engineering - Autonomous Pilot Integration - Expeditionary; R5175

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit (Use the "Apply for this Job" box below). Follow Shield AI on Linked In, X, Instagram, and You Tube.

The Autonomous Pilot Integration team for expeditionary platforms builds autonomy solutions for V-BAT - an unmanned aircraft operating in expeditionary environments for ISR, target acquisition, communications, and multi-agent missions. The team also builds autonomy for X-BAT, a new platform under development by the aircraft team; for X-BAT the team builds on top of the existing mission autonomy solution from the Strategic Systems (ACP) portfolio and works closely with the aircraft team on the flight-autonomy interface.

We combine capabilities from the Autonomy Capabilities team (motion planning, tactics), the Perception team (e.g., ViDAR, ATR), and the Hivemind

SDK to develop the autonomy software that runs on these platforms, then integrate, validate, and field it on the real hardware - for U.S. and international defense customers. Our engineers write new autonomy code - such as mission behaviors, platform-specific control (including VTOL transitions), multi-agent coordination, contingencies, and executive autonomy - and own it end-to-end from software-in-the-loop, to hardware-in-the-loop, to vehicle-in-the-loop, to live test exercise.

In this role, you will lead a team of autonomy engineers focused primarily on Hivemind on V-BAT, with growing scope on Hivemind on X-BAT - owning their delivery, their growth, and the technical health of your area. A core part of the job is growing the team: hiring strong engineers, mentoring them through hard technical work, and shaping their career development.

You will stay technically active - writing code where it best serves the team, staying close to the integration work, making sound technical decisions, and leading them through the design, development, and delivery of a major capability or program. A defining part of this role is working in extreme partnership with the aircraft team that builds and maintains V-BAT and X-BAT - the relationship and tight coordination with them is critical to your team's success.

You will also partner closely with the Autonomy Capabilities, Perception, and GCS teams, feature crews, customer/program offices, the operator community that flies V-BAT today, and prospective customers for X-BAT as the new platform matures. This portfolio has a strong fielded-operator culture - long-endurance ISR missions, customer-driven workflow iteration, and demanding live exercises across multiple U.S. and international services - and you will set the pace for your team accordingly.

• Lead the Team - manage a small-to-mid-sized engineering team (typically 5–10 engineers); own performance, growth, leveling, and delivery; run 1:1s, performance reviews, and team rituals.
• Grow the Team via Hiring - drive hiring for your area: identify the skills you need, partner with recruiting, run interviews, set the bar, and personally close strong candidates.
• Grow Engineers Technically - mentor engineers through hard problems; create stretch opportunities; give direct, actionable technical feedback; help engineers level up in both skill and impact.
• Aircraft Team Partnership - maintain an exceptionally close, daily working relationship with the aircraft team that builds and maintains V-BAT - coordinating continuously on platform changes, autopilot interface evolution, sensor integration, hardware/software compatibility, and release planning. For X-BAT, work closely with the aircraft team to define and integrate the flight-autonomy interface. The success of this role depends heavily on these partnerships.
• Develop & Field Autonomy - develop & integrate autonomy software solutions onto V-BAT, including payload and sensor integration (e.g., payload computer bring-up, ViDAR, EO/IR), integration with the custom V-BAT autopilot and its control modes (e.g., HSA, waypoint), multi-agent coordination, and customer release cadence - and lead a small team through the design, development, and delivery of a major capability or program.
• Technical Leadership - lead a small feature crew or sub-program; set technical direction, break down work, unblock the team, and report progress to leadership and stakeholders.
• Hands-on Technical Contribution - stay active in the code; contribute directly where it serves the team - prototyping new capabilities, taking on deep technical analysis of hard problems, or absorbing critical work during demo crunch. This is a manager role, not a managing-only role.
• Collaboration Across Teams & Partners - act as a primary technical interface with the Autonomy…