# Senior Staff Software Engineer, Autonomy

**Company**: Shield AI
**Work arrangement**: onsite
**Experience**: senior
**Job type**: full-time
**Salary**: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity
**Category**: Engineering
**Industry**: Technology

**Apply**: https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/0a4c3e5c-3b63-4f16-a483-3a8247f78228?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply
**Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_8a58d943-70f

## Description

The Senior Staff Software Engineer, Autonomy will function as a hands-on technical lead / subject matter expert and collaborate with Shield AI teammates / customers to build edge-AI and autonomy software for platforms across sea, air, and space.

This role involves working closely with customers to understand their requirements, writing code, developing new capabilities and ensuring successful software/hardware integration, and mentoring teammates.

Examples of projects you will work on include: Autonomous teaming drones. Teaming between helicopters and drones. Autonomy on Robodogs. AI Pilots for Fighter Jets. and more!

Key responsibilities include: Learn Hivemind: Become an expert user of the Hivemind Enterprise Autonomy Software Development Kit. Tactical Autonomy Design – Design tactical autonomy algorithms to enable unmanned aircraft to perform complex missions across air, land, and sea domains with minimal human supervision. High-Performance Software Development – Develop high-performance software modules that incorporate planning, decision-making, and behavior execution strategies for dynamic and adversarial environments. Behavior Architecture Implementation – Implement and test behavior architectures that enable multi-agent coordination, target engagement, reconnaissance, and survivability in contested scenarios. Hybrid Autonomy Integration – Work at the intersection of classical autonomy and machine learning, blending rule-based systems with learning-based methods such as reinforcement learning to achieve robust, adaptive behavior. Hardware Software Integration: Cross-Functional Collaboration – Collaborate with cross-functional teams including perception, planning, simulation, hardware, and flight test to ensure seamless integration of autonomy solutions on real-world platforms. Deployment & Field Testing – Deploy autonomy capabilities to real platforms and participate in field tests and flight demos, validating performance in operationally relevant conditions. Mission Data Analysis – Analyze mission logs and performance data to diagnose failures, optimize behavior models, and inform iterative development. R&D and Roadmapping – Contribute to the autonomy roadmap by researching and prototyping new algorithms, identifying tactical capability gaps, and proposing novel solutions that advance Shield AI’s mission. Program Support & Adaptation – Support defense-focused programs and customer needs by adapting autonomy solutions to evolving mission sets, compliance requirements, and operational feedback. Handover / Training: Provide software handover and training to customers for their autonomy development efforts. Documentation: Develop and maintain technical documentation for customer as well as internal use. Travel Requirement – Members of this team typically travel around 10-15% of the year (to different office locations, customer sites, and flight integration events).

## Skills

### Required
- C++
- Python
- Software Engineering
- Autonomy
- Robotics
- Machine Learning
- Reinforcement Learning

### Nice to have
- Defense Aviation
- Robotics Industry

---

Source: [Apply at jobs.lever.co](https://jobs.lever.co/shieldai/0a4c3e5c-3b63-4f16-a483-3a8247f78228?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply)