Senior Software Engineer, Autonomous Pilot Integration – Emerging Domains; R5398

Business Development Operations Associate

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Full-time

$233,760 - $350,640 / year

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, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. 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 www.shield.ai.

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The Autonomous Pilot Integration team for Emerging Domains builds autonomy solutions for new platforms and mission profiles outside Shield AI's established portfolios—including space (satellites, missile defense), maritime (USV and UUV integration), and contested logistics (unmanned helicopters and related autonomous resupply platforms). The team takes on short-term R&D and integration efforts—often standing up the first autonomy on a brand-new platform or mission—with the intent that successful efforts grow into larger, multi-year programs.

We combine capabilities from the Autonomy Capabilities team (motion planning, tactics), the Perception team (e.g., ViDAR, ATR), and the HivemindSDK—selectively leveraging existing Shield AI autonomy solutions where they apply—to develop autonomy that runs on these new platforms. Our engineers write new autonomy code—such as mission behaviors, platform-specific control, 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'll define the technical direction for Emerging Domains, guiding autonomy strategy across multiple new platforms and mission areas while helping transform early‑stage R&D efforts into scalable, long‑term programs. You'll solve the organization's most complex technical challenges, influence engineering strategy across organizations, and partner with engineering leadership, platform teams, and customer stakeholders to shape the future of Shield AI's next generation of autonomy portfolios.

Stand Up New Programs – Define the technical strategy for establishing autonomy on entirely new platforms and mission areas, determining what should be built, reused, or extended from existing Shield AI capabilities.

Navigate Ambiguity & Shifting Priorities – Lead engineering through evolving customer needs, changing priorities, and uncertain technical landscapes while maintaining execution and long‑term technical vision.

Technical Strategy & Portfolio Leadership – Define long‑term technical direction across Emerging Domains, establishing architecture, integration strategies, and engineering patterns that enable successful transition from R&D to operational programs.

Develop & Field Autonomy – Guide development and deployment of autonomy capabilities across space, maritime, contested logistics, and future emerging platforms while ensuring successful operational delivery.

Platform Team Partnerships – Build deep technical partnerships with platform organizations and influence interface evolution, integration strategy, and long‑term platform architecture.

Collaboration Across Teams & Partners – Influence architecture across Autonomy Capabilities, Perception, GCS, platform teams, engineering leadership, customer organizations, and external partners.

Design & Documentation – Lead architecture reviews, engineering standards, ICDs, and technical best practices…