Senior Software Engineer (Integration)

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Software Engineer (Integration) to serve as the software SME for the V-BAT Fleet Support team. You will own customer-facing engineering support for software issues affecting aircraft operations, onboard software, mission software, ground control interactions, logging, configuration, and subsystem integration across the fielded fleet.

As the bridge between Fleet Support and the software, autonomy, avionics, and systems engineering teams, you will help transform field-reported issues into reproducible technical findings, corrective actions, and long-term product improvements.

Key responsibilities include:

• Serving as the software SME for Fleet Support and leading escalated investigations involving fielded aircraft and mission software.
• Triage and root-cause software issues affecting aircraft behavior, mission execution, subsystem integration, logging, configuration, and deployed operations.
• Reproducing customer-reported issues in lab, simulation, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) environments.
• Analyzing logs, telemetry, and system state to distinguish software defects from hardware, network, installation, or operator-workflow issues.
• Debugging integration points across onboard compute, ground control applications, payload interfaces, and external software dependencies.
• Troubleshooting application programming interface (API) issues, configuration issues, and software-to-hardware interactions in operational environments.
• Building and maintaining lightweight tools, scripts, and automated checks that improve triage quality, reproducibility, and field support efficiency.
• Supporting release readiness, validation, software deployment troubleshooting, and recovery planning for customer-facing operations.
• Turning recurring fleet issues into actionable bug reports, engineering requirements, and product-improvement recommendations.

Required qualifications include:

• A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 5+ years of experience in software engineering for robotics, autonomy, aerospace, unmanned aircraft systems, embedded systems, or other mission-critical platforms.
• Strong programming skills in C++ and Python.
• Strong Linux troubleshooting and systems-debug experience.
• Experience debugging software that interfaces with hardware, sensors, networks, or distributed systems.
• Ability to turn vague field symptoms into structured, reproducible technical findings.
• Strong communication skills in cross-functional and customer-facing environments.

Preferred qualifications include:

• Experience with autonomy software, flight software, embedded avionics software, or ground control software.
• Experience with simulation, HIL, or automated test tooling.
• Experience supporting deployed software, integration test, or operational validation efforts.
• Experience supporting customer-site deployments or operational readiness events.