Senior Software Engineer, Autonomous Pilot Integration – Emerging Domains (R5423)
Job details
- Work mode
- On-site
- Employment
- Full-time
- Level
- Senior
- Posted
- Jul 21, 2026
- Last confirmed open
- Oct 21, 2026
What you'll need to apply
Fields this application requires
Company-specific questions
- This position may require access to information and technology that is subject to export controls, such as EAR. Are you any of the following?
- Shield AI provides technology, services, and support to the United States military and allied forces with their various missions. If selected for employment with Shield AI, your contributions will directly relate to and/or support these missions. Are there any reasons why you would not be able to fully contribute in support of the U.S. military and allied forces?
- Are you a transitioning service member?
- What full time job(s) are you applying for?essay
About this role
Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide.
For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
The Autonomous Pilot Integration team for Emerging Domains builds autonomy solutions for new platforms and mission profiles outside Shield AI's established portfolios—including space (satellites, missile defense), maritime (USV and UUV integration), and contested logistics (unmanned helicopters and related autonomous resupply platforms).
The team takes on short-term R&D and integration efforts—often standing up the first autonomy on a brand-new platform or mission—with the intent that successful efforts grow into larger, multi-year programs.
We combine capabilities from the Autonomy Capabilities team (motion planning, tactics), the Perception team (e.g., ViDAR, ATR), and the HivemindSDK—selectively leveraging existing Shield AI autonomy solutions where they apply—to develop autonomy that runs on these new platforms.
Our engineers write new autonomy code—such as mission behaviors, platform-specific control, multi-agent coordination, contingencies, and executive autonomy—and own it end-to-end from software-in-the-loop, to hardware-in-the-loop, to vehicle-in-the-loop, to live test exercise.
In this role, you'll develop and integrate autonomy capabilities across a variety of emerging-domain platforms while helping establish autonomy on systems that often have no existing autonomy baseline. You'll work closely with platform teams, the Autonomy Capabilities, Perception, and GCS teams, feature crews, and customer stakeholders to solve complex integration challenges and deliver mission-ready autonomy software.
This is a hands-on role for engineers who enjoy working across diverse platforms, solving ambiguous technical problems, and seeing new capabilities operate in real-world environments.