Engineer II, Software - Autonomy Capabilities - New Grad - 6131

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems.

The Autonomy Capabilities team develops reusable mission behaviors, motion-planning, decision-making, and multi-agent software that can be integrated across unmanned platforms.

As an Engineer II, you will deliver bounded autonomy features and tests using established technical direction. You will investigate moderately defined behavior and integration issues, explain tradeoffs in your area, and work with adjacent teams to make capabilities usable.

Responsibilities:

• Implement C++ changes to planning, mission behavior, coordination, or contingency capabilities using established designs.
• Build unit, integration, and simulation tests; define expected results for assigned work and investigate failures.
• Analyze logs and scenario results to identify behavioral, configuration, or interface issues and verify fixes.
• Help integrate reusable capabilities with platform and mission software, perception inputs, and operator-facing interfaces.
• Improve examples, documentation, configuration, and developer tools that make a capability easier to validate and adopt.
• Coordinate with autonomy, perception, integration, simulation, and GCS/C2 teammates on assigned interfaces.
• Communicate progress, risks, test evidence, and open questions in reviews and debriefs.

Requirements:

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field, graduating between December 2026 and August 2027.
• Typically 2+ years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree, or equivalent work experience; relevant graduate work or substantial project experience may be considered.
• Working proficiency in C++ or Python and ability to contribute in the other language with support.
• Experience with Linux development, Git, debugging, and automated software tests.
• Applied experience through work, research, or substantial projects in robotics, planning, controls, AI, simulation, or autonomy software.
• Ability to complete a bounded feature with tests and communicate where guidance or design decisions are needed.
• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with motion planning, state machines, multi-agent coordination, decision-making, or optimization.
• Experience with robotics middleware, simulation frameworks, CI, or distributed systems.
• Familiarity with integrating algorithms into production software and evaluating behavior in representative scenarios.

Benefits:

• Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity