# Staff Engineer, DevOps

**Company**: Shield AI
**Location**: San Diego, California
**Work arrangement**: onsite
**Experience**: staff
**Job type**: full-time
**Salary**: $150,000 - $220,000 a year
**Category**: Engineering
**Industry**: Technology

**Apply**: https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/1d77e789-a2be-414c-9a1f-f4bc284343ea
**Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_6d03dbf4-1e2

## Description

Shield AI is building autonomous aircraft that redefine aviation. The Software Integration & Operations (SIO) team builds the pipelines, tools, and systems that make fast, reliable delivery of complex aircraft software possible.

As a DevOps Build Engineer, you will own and maintain the build system for our autonomous aircraft (XBAT/VBAT). This role is primarily focused on Developer Experience (DevEx) and bringing DevOps best practices to our software engineers to accelerate their development cycles.

Your responsibilities will include:

* Being the expert on our native (C++) software build process
* Improving developer velocity by reducing build/test cycle time and eliminating pipeline bottlenecks
* Collaborating with Software Engineers to understand their requirements, propose designs, and implement identified solutions
* Partnering with developers to resolve build/test failures quickly and set best practices for integration
* Integrating CI pipelines with HIL and simulation environments for automated validation
* Implementing monitoring, dashboards, and alerts related to build system performance for both local development and CI workflows
* Using agentic solutions to aid in quickly identifying root cause around build failures and getting the appropriate feedback to a Software Engineer

The ideal candidate will have:

* A BS in CS, CE, EE, or related field with 7+ years industry experience (or MS/PhD with 5+ years)
* Deep CMake/C++ expertise or equivalent
* Strong understanding of dependency management and proficiency with either Conan or CPM
* Proficiency with containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, cloud build clusters)
* Strong scripting skills (Python, Bash)
* Hands-on experience integrating automated testing into CI pipelines
* Demonstrated success improving developer productivity at scale
* Demonstrated track record of excellence as a primary contributor on projects - showcasing the ability to navigate through development cycles, overcome obstacles, and deliver high-quality solutions in a fast-paced environment

Additional desired skills include:

* Proficiency with CICD tools (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Gitlab)
* Cloud Operations experience (Azure, AWS, GCP)
* Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Ansible) and monitoring (Grafana, Prometheus)
* Background in robotics, autonomy, or aerospace systems

## Skills

### Required
- CMake
- C++
- Conan
- CPM
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- cloud build clusters
- Python
- Bash
- automated testing
- CI pipelines
- HIL
- simulation environments
- monitoring
- dashboards
- alerts

### Nice to have
- CICD tools
- Cloud Operations
- infrastructure-as-code
- robotics
- autonomy
- aerospace systems