Chief Engineer at Shield AI

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense technology company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent, autonomous systems. Its products include Hivemind Enterprise—EdgeOS, Pilot, Commander, and Forge—as well as V-BAT and Sentient Vision Systems (wide-area motion imaging software). With offices in San Diego, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kyiv (Ukraine), and Melbourne (Australia), Shield AI’s technology actively supports U.S. and allied operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, and Instagram.

What You'll Do:

• Serve as the Chief Engineer on Shield AI projects focused on developing and deploying autonomy solutions for unmanned aircraft.
• Lead a team responsible for advancing Hivemind Autonomy and shaping Department of Defense (DoD) autonomy architectures.
• Define and assign technical objectives, make key engineering decisions, and ensure the quality and completeness of all technical deliverables.
• Provide technical leadership and oversight across both Internal Research and Development (IRAD) initiatives and DoD contracts.

Required Qualifications:

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering, and/or similar degree.
• 10+ years of industry experience in autonomy and/or UAS platforms (e.g., defense tech, self-driving car, etc.).
• 7+ years of delivering software into production/certifiable environments with high-reliability.
• Understanding of guidance, control and navigation (GNC) (e.g. controls, estimation, planning).
• Understanding of robotics stack (e.g., controls, estimation, perception, planning, etc.).
• Understanding of software development processes and how to effectively deploy software.
• Experience defining technical scope and managing technical requirements, product architectures, ICDs and other system level design documentation.
• Demonstrate problem solving skills by applying a scientific technical approach.
• Customer-facing engineering leader supporting both defense and internally funded development programs.
• Contribute to government contract proposal writing.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Excellent leadership skills, driving a team of 6-20 engineers.