Senior Staff Software Engineer, Autonomous Pilot Integration – Expeditionary (R5193)

Shield AI•Washington, DC

1d•$233,760 - $350,640

About The Position

The Autonomous Pilot Integration team for expeditionary platforms builds autonomy solutions for V-BAT — an unmanned aircraft operating in expeditionary environments for ISR, target acquisition, communications, and multi-agent missions. The team also builds autonomy for X-BAT, a new platform under development by the aircraft team; for X-BAT, the team builds on top of the existing mission autonomy solution from the Strategic Systems (ACP) portfolio and works closely with the aircraft team on the flight-autonomy interface. We combine capabilities from the Autonomy Capabilities team (motion planning, tactics), the Perception team (e.g., ViDAR, ATR), and the HivemindSDK to develop the autonomy software that runs on these platforms, then integrate, validate, and field it on the real hardware — for U.S. and international defense customers. In this role, you'll own the technical direction for the Expeditionary portfolio, driving the evolution of autonomy architecture across V-BAT and X-BAT while ensuring scalable, mission-ready solutions that support current operators and future platforms. You'll define long-term technical strategy, solve the organization's most complex integration challenges, and influence the direction of autonomy software spanning mission behaviors, platform interfaces, payload integration, executive autonomy, and multi-agent operations. You'll partner closely with the Aircraft team, Autonomy Capabilities, Perception, GCS, Strategic Systems (ACP), engineering leadership, customer/program offices, and operational users to ensure Expeditionary autonomy continues to evolve while remaining reliable in operational environments.

Requirements

BS/MS in a relevant engineering discipline or equivalent experience.
10+ years of relevant experience.
Expert-level C++ and Linux systems development experience.
Demonstrated experience defining technical strategy across multiple engineering teams or programs.
Proven track record influencing architecture and solving highly complex systems integration challenges.
Experience mentoring senior engineers and driving engineering excellence.
Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.

Nice To Haves

Extensive experience with Group 3 UAS, VTOL platforms, or comparable autonomous systems.
Experience defining flight-autonomy interfaces or custom autopilot integrations.
Experience deploying autonomy to operational military systems.
Experience with international defense customers.
Experience with STANAG 4586, UCI, OMS, and open-systems architectures.
Experience shaping engineering practices across an organization.

Responsibilities

Define and drive the long-term technical direction for Expeditionary autonomy across V-BAT, X-BAT, and future platforms.
Guide development of mission autonomy, payload integration, flight-autonomy interfaces, executive autonomy, and multi-agent capabilities while ensuring successful operational deployment.
Establish long-term technical strategy with the Aircraft team for platform integration, interface evolution, and mission readiness.
Influence architecture across the Autonomy Capabilities, Perception, GCS, Strategic Systems (ACP), Aircraft, and customer organizations.
Serve as the organization's technical expert for complex autonomy integration challenges spanning software, hardware, and operations.
Lead architecture reviews, engineering standards, interface definitions, and organization-wide technical improvements.
Mentor senior engineers, develop technical leaders, contribute to leveling frameworks, and partner on senior hiring.
Guide customer releases, deployment strategy, and mission validation while supporting critical operational events.
Drive long-term improvements to engineering processes, integration workflows, testing infrastructure, and developer experience.
Define technical strategy for command-and-control interoperability and adoption of open-systems standards.
Define the technical hiring bar for senior engineering roles, partner with engineering managers on long-term staffing strategy, and help grow the organization's technical capabilities.