Shield AI

Job Description Job Description 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 . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. Job Description: Our Applications Engineers are highly technical, customer-facing problem solvers who play a critical role in deploying Shield AI's Hivemind software in real-world environments. This role focuses on maritime autonomy, helping customers integrate and deploy Hivemind on maritime platforms. It involves frequent travel, including international and multi-week engagements, to work directly alongside customers on-site. This is primarily a Senior-level role, and we're typically looking for candidates with several years of relevant industry experience. We will also consider exceptional mid-level engineers who demonstrate strong technical fundamentals, a hands-on mindset, and a track record of taking initiative in dynamic, customer-driven environments. You will work closely with customers to understand their requirements, provide technical expertise during deployment, and ensure successful integration of our AI and autonomy products. You'll also collaborate internally with engineering teams, with opportunities to grow into technical leadership over time. You should apply if: You're excited about a role involving travel and enjoy being on-site with customers, including international and multi-week engagements. You're a strong technical contributor who takes initiative and figures things out. You enjoy problem-solving, building relationships, and working at the intersection of engineering and real-world deployment. You're passionate about autonomy, robotics, and applying these technologies to maritime operations. You should not apply if: You prefer minimal travel or want to work primarily from a single location. You want to do 100% R&D and don't enjoy customer interactions. You've never programmed in C, C++, or Rust. What you'll do: Deploy with customers on-site globally (up to 50% travel) to support software integration, development, and on-water testing. Become an expert user of the Hivemind enterprise software stack and its various autonomy modules. Provide technical support and training to customers. Develop AI and autonomy applications using the Shield AI enterprise software development kit, with a focus on maritime missions and platforms. Assist the sales team in pre-sales activities, including demonstrations, conferences, and immersions. Assist in post-sales deployment and integration of Shield AI enterprise software products with maritime platform controls, sensors, navigation systems, and communications. Develop and maintain technical documentation and training materials. Help customers debug software and API integration issues. Collaborate with the product engineering team to address customer feedback and improve products. Required qualifications: Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, or a related field. 5+ years of industry experience. 2+ years of experience in an integration or applications engineering role. 2+ years of experience working in a startup environment. Strong technical background in software engineering. Strong proficiency in modern C++. Intermediate proficiency in Python. Experience developing or integrating software for maritime platforms, marine robotics, or autonomous vessel systems. Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills. Strong communication and interpersonal skills. Preferred qualifications: Experience in the defense maritime or marine robotics industry. Familiarity with maritime navigation, vessel control, collision avoidance, or maritime sensors such as radar, AIS, and sonar. Experience supporting autonomous vessel demonstrations or sea trials. Experience building and running a small enterprise software applications or solutions engineering team. Advanced technical degree, especially in robotics or autonomy-related fields. Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment) Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information. Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Job Description Job Description 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 . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. Job Description: The Aircraft Simulation team is the nerve center of autonomy integration at Shield AI. We deploy the innovative tools, intelligent models, and streamlined processes that make it possible to evaluate complex autonomous flight algorithms at scale. Our tools are utilized in a broad range of simulation-from mission autonomy simulation to Hardware-in-the-loop, and every layer between. In an era of rapid advancement in Artificial Intelligence, our goal is simple: make AI fly-safely, reliably, and fast. As a Staff Modeling & Simulation Engineer, you will be a pivotal force in engineering Shield AI's foundational simulation platform for our next-generation VTOL aircraft. You'll develop our emerging simulation engine and deploy advanced aircraft models in C++ across multiple engineering domains-ranging from mathematical physics to the latest in surrogate machine learning methods. You will also utilize your multiphysics and aeronautical systems knowledge to conduct system performance analysis against test and vendor data to ensure simulation results are valid in operational scenarios, and simulation platforms are both stable and fast. What you'll do: Develop infrastructure and models in C++ for autonomous aircraft simulation. Serve as a subject matter expert in modern aerospace and software engineering. Architect deterministic, high-performance simulation software. Lead verification and validation (V&V) analysis studies on models and model tooling. Collaborate tightly across autonomy, embedded, GNC, and test engineering teams to ensure our simulation mirrors real aircraft behavior and mission scenarios. Contribute to platform-agnostic simulation tooling to accelerate future development efforts. Train and guide junior engineers in modeling and simulation best practices. Required qualifications: BS in Computer Science, Aerospace, Robotics, or related field. 7+ years of experience in simulation software development with C++ competency; exceptional candidates with less experience and demonstrated depth will be considered. Strong understanding of rigid-body dynamics, kinematics, and the physics of dynamic systems. Proven experience developing or integrating simulation systems for robotics, aerospace, and/or other complex dynamic systems (e.g., maritime, space, defense ground systems, or gaming). Ability to debug complex build and runtime environments. Experience with simulation verification and validation. Strong communication skills across software, hardware, and systems disciplines. Must be eligible to obtain a Secret Clearance; Secret clearance eligibility requires US Citizenship. Preferred qualifications: MS or PhD in Computer Science, Aerospace, Robotics, or related field. Familiarity with modern C++ standards (C+ or later). Grasp of real-time and deterministic software design, including multi-threading, synchronization, and memory management. Experience with DevOps-integrated simulation workflows, including CI/CD and automated testing environments. Experience with Hardware- and Software-in-the-Loop simulation environments, including integration of real hardware into simulation environments. Experience with CMake, package management tools (e.g. Conan, Nix), and profiling tools. Experience with software testing tools (GTest, etc.) Working knowledge of Python for data analysis, test automation, or simulation orchestration. Experience working on autonomous aircraft systems. Active Secret or Top Secret Clearance is desired. Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment) Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information. Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Job Description Job Description 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 . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. Job Description: The Aircraft Simulation team is the nerve center of autonomy integration at Shield AI. We deploy the innovative tools, intelligent models, and streamlined processes that make it possible to evaluate complex autonomous flight algorithms at scale. Our tools are utilized in a broad range of simulation-from mission autonomy simulation to Hardware-in-the-loop, and every layer between. In an era of rapid advancement in Artificial Intelligence, our goal is simple: make AI fly-safely, reliably, and fast. As a Staff Modeling & Simulation Engineer, you will be a pivotal force in engineering Shield AI's foundational simulation platform for our next-generation VTOL aircraft. You'll develop our emerging simulation engine and deploy advanced aircraft models in C++ across multiple engineering domains-ranging from mathematical physics to the latest in surrogate machine learning methods. You will also utilize your multiphysics and aeronautical systems knowledge to conduct system performance analysis against test and vendor data to ensure simulation results are valid in operational scenarios, and simulation platforms are both stable and fast. What you'll do: Develop infrastructure and models in C++ for autonomous aircraft simulation. Serve as a subject matter expert in modern aerospace and software engineering. Architect deterministic, high-performance simulation software. Lead verification and validation (V&V) analysis studies on models and model tooling. Collaborate tightly across autonomy, embedded, GNC, and test engineering teams to ensure our simulation mirrors real aircraft behavior and mission scenarios. Contribute to platform-agnostic simulation tooling to accelerate future development efforts. Train and guide junior engineers in modeling and simulation best practices. Required qualifications: BS in Computer Science, Aerospace, Robotics, or related field. 7+ years of experience in simulation software development with C++ competency; exceptional candidates with less experience and demonstrated depth will be considered. Strong understanding of rigid-body dynamics, kinematics, and the physics of dynamic systems. Proven experience developing or integrating simulation systems for robotics, aerospace, and/or other complex dynamic systems (e.g., maritime, space, defense ground systems, or gaming). Ability to debug complex build and runtime environments. Experience with simulation verification and validation. Strong communication skills across software, hardware, and systems disciplines. Must be eligible to obtain a Secret Clearance; Secret clearance eligibility requires US Citizenship. Preferred qualifications: MS or PhD in Computer Science, Aerospace, Robotics, or related field. Familiarity with modern C++ standards (C+ or later). Grasp of real-time and deterministic software design, including multi-threading, synchronization, and memory management. Experience with DevOps-integrated simulation workflows, including CI/CD and automated testing environments. Experience with Hardware- and Software-in-the-Loop simulation environments, including integration of real hardware into simulation environments. Experience with CMake, package management tools (e.g. Conan, Nix), and profiling tools. Experience with software testing tools (GTest, etc.) Working knowledge of Python for data analysis, test automation, or simulation orchestration. Experience working on autonomous aircraft systems. Active Secret or Top Secret Clearance is desired. Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment) Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information. Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Job Description Job Description 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 . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. Job Description: Shield AI builds intelligent systems that protect service members and civilians. Our products include Hivemind autonomy software and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and our teams support customers and operations across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. The Forward Deployed Engineer, Operations & Sustainment is a highly technical, customer-facing role focused on deploying, supporting, and sustaining Hivemind products in real operating environments. This role bridges field deployment, customer operations, technical troubleshooting, training, and sustainment. This is a travel-intensive role. Candidates must be willing and able to travel at least 50% of the time, including frequent domestic and international trips, customer-site work, test events, training events, and multi-week deployments as program needs require. In this role, you will work directly with customers and internal teams to install, configure, validate, train, troubleshoot, and support Hivemind products. The role requires strong technical judgment, clear customer communication, comfort operating under field pressure, and the discipline to turn field lessons into durable support artifacts: runbooks, supported baselines, evidence packages, known-issue records, escalation paths, customer-safe updates, and product feedback. What you'll do: Deploy with customers on site globally, with a minimum expectation of 50% travel, to support installation, configuration, validation, training, troubleshooting, and sustainment of Hivemind products. Become an expert user of the Hivemind Enterprise software stack, autonomy modules, deployment tooling, supported configurations, and diagnostic workflows. Execute and improve deployment runbooks covering software install, version/configuration validation, licensing or provisioning status, pre-mission checks, log readiness, and acceptance steps. Provide hands-on technical support to customer operators, maintainers, partners, and internal field teams during deployment, test, training, demonstration, and sustainment windows. Capture and organize field evidence for triage, including logs, telemetry, recorded data, screenshots, version/configuration state, asset context, operator notes, mission phase, and environmental constraints. Drive issues through the support flow: intake, severity assessment, ownership, workaround or fix delivery, customer-safe status, closure, and learning loop. Convert recurring field issues, workarounds, customer questions, and training gaps into support tickets, knowledge-base content, known-issue records, runbooks, and product feedback. Partner with engineering, product, program, sustainment, licensing, safety, legal, commercial, and support teams to route issues to the right owner for seamless customer support.Support root-cause investigation and corrective-action validation by reproducing issues, collecting field context, testing updates, and confirming fixes or workarounds. Support Field Service Representative-style obligations when required by contract, including on-site support posture, issue intake, operator assistance, troubleshooting, documentation, escalation, and evidence capture. Projects you might work on: Deploying Hivemind software and autonomy capabilities during customer integration events, exercises, test campaigns, demonstrations, or operational support windows. Building deployment-to-sustainment handoff packages with supported baselines, configuration checklists, evidence checklists, known issues, escalation contacts, and training material. Standing up a repeatable support flow so field issues move from informal chats and ad hoc engineering asks into a durable support hub, severity model, owner route, and closure loop. Troubleshooting field behavior across software, autonomy, networking, telemetry, configuration, sensors, operator workflows, and customer environment constraints. Creating customer-safe documentation that helps operators and maintainers self-serve routine issues while preserving the right escalation path for mission-critical problems. Required qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. 5+ years of experience in field engineering, forward-deployed engineering, applications engineering, systems integration, flight test, robotics support, unmanned systems operations, technical operations, customer deployment, or a similar hands-on technical role. Strong technical background in software engineering, systems integration, or autonomy-adjacent systems. Proficiency writing, reading, and debugging modern C++ code. Working proficiency with Python, Bash, or similar scripting for diagnostics, automation, data handling, and field support workflows. Strong troubleshooting skills across Linux or embedded systems, networking, configuration management, logs, telemetry, release packages, sensors or payloads, and operator workflows. Excellent problem-solving, communication, training, expectation-management, and escalation skills in customer-facing environments. Ability to write clear field notes, deployment records, troubleshooting guides, evidence packages, and support updates that engineering and support teams can act on. Willingness and ability to travel at least 50% of the time, including frequent domestic and international travel and multi-week deployments. Ability to operate professionally in lab, flight-test, range, customer-site, and field environments under time pressure. Ability to comply with export-control, security, safety, sensitive-data, customer-site, and mission-specific operating requirements. Preferred qualifications: Experience with autonomy, robotics, defense aviation, unmanned aircraft, deployed defense systems, flight test, payload integration, sensors, operator systems, or edge compute environments. Experience supporting defense, government, allied, or international customers in operational, test, training, or overseas environments. Experience building or scaling a support, field-service, customer-success, sustainment, or applications-engineering function during an early product rollout. Experience with enterprise software deployment, customer support, licensing, provisioning, release management, configuration baselines, or offline/air-gapped operating environments. Hands-on experience with recorded-data analysis, diagnostic tooling, telemetry review, networking tools, system health checks, or support automation. FAA Part 107, military aviation or maintenance background, UAS operator experience, flight-test experience, systems engineering experience, or prior Field Service Representative experience. Experience using GenAI tools to accelerate troubleshooting, documentation, knowledge capture, data review, or support workflow automation. Active or prior security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one when required by program or customer need. Senior Engineer: $152000-$228,000 Staff Engineer: $181,000-$272,000 Senior Staff Engineer: $212,000-$318,000 Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment) Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information. Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Job Description Job Description 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 . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. Job Description: The Head of Product Design will define and lead the user experience vision for Hivemind, Shield AI's autonomy development platform. This role is responsible for transforming complex autonomy, robotics, AI, and developer workflows into intuitive experiences that enable engineers, operators, and organizations to develop and deploy resilient autonomy at scale. A major focus of this role will be shaping the next generation of AI-native and agent-driven workflows across the autonomy lifecycle. As Hivemind evolves from traditional software tooling toward AI-assisted autonomy development, simulation, evaluation, deployment, and operations, this leader will help invent entirely new ways for users to collaborate with AI systems, agents, and foundation-model-powered tools. The ideal candidate has deep experience designing AI products, developer platforms, or complex technical systems and can translate emerging AI capabilities into workflows that dramatically improve user productivity and outcomes. This is a highly hands-on role as this leader will manage a team of elite designers. During the first 6-12 months, most of the time will be spent conducting user research, designing experiences, prototyping concepts, facilitating product discovery, and partnering directly with Product and Engineering teams to define the future of autonomy development. What you'll do:User Research & Product Discovery Lead customer research efforts across product development, customer engagement, and solutions teams to identify pain points, workflows, unmet needs, and product opportunities. Establish scalable mechanisms for gathering, synthesizing, and communicating user insights throughout the product development lifecycle. Translate customer and operational feedback into actionable product recommendations, requirements, and design initiatives. Product Design & User Experience Design end-to-end workflows across autonomy development, simulation, testing, analysis, deployment, and operations. Create intuitive experiences for highly technical users including autonomy engineers, software developers, operators, and mission planners. Simplify complex system architectures, data flows, infrastructure tooling, and AI workflows into understandable user experiences. Own the end-to-end experience of the product including training, documentation, tutorials, and overall workflows - help our users get the most of the product. Strategic Product Leadership Partner closely with Product Managers to shape product vision, roadmap priorities, and go-to-market strategies. Drive alignment across Product, Engineering, Design, and Executive Leadership through compelling narratives, prototypes, and visual storytelling. Advocate for user-centered decision making in a highly technical and engineering-driven environment. Design Practice, Systems & Organizational Scale Establish and evolve design standards, design systems, UX principles, and product design best practices across Shield AI. Raise the quality bar for product design, usability, consistency, and customer experience. Grow the product design function by mentoring a small team of designers, shaping design culture, and staying actively involved in critical design work. Champion design wins and impact across the organization, highlighting the important role design plays in delivering successful products. AI-Native Product Design & Agentic Workflows Define the future user experience for AI-assisted autonomy development, simulation, testing, deployment, and operational workflows. Design human-AI collaboration models that enable users to effectively leverage AI agents, copilots, and foundation-model-powered systems. Partner with Product, AI Research, and Engineering teams to create new interaction patterns for agent orchestration, autonomy generation, scenario creation, test generation, and mission planning. Develop frameworks for trust, transparency, explainability, and human oversight within AI-assisted workflows. Help establish industry-leading design patterns for Physical AI development platforms and agent-driven software systems. Required qualifications: 10+ years of experience in Product Design, UX Design, Human Factors, or related fields. Proven track record designing and shipping complex technical products, developer tools, platforms, infrastructure software, data-dense applications, or enterprise systems. Deep technical fluency and ability to effectively collaborate with senior engineering leaders on architecture, technical constraints, and software development workflows. Strong experience conducting user research and translating insights into product strategy and design solutions. Proven ability to influence product direction and organizational decisions without direct authority. Strong understanding of AI-powered product experiences, including conversational interfaces, human-in-the-loop workflows, AI-assisted decision making, and agent-based systems. Experience defining new user experiences in ambiguous technology spaces where industry standards and workflows are still emerging. Experience building and retaining high-performing design teams. Strong portfolio showcasing both strategic thinking and hands-on design execution. Preferred qualifications: Background designing developer platforms, SDKs, cloud infrastructure products, DevOps tooling, or engineering productivity tools. Direct work on AI/ML platforms, MLOps workflows, foundation-model-enabled products, copilots, or agentic systems. Familiarity with autonomy, robotics, simulation, digital twins, mission systems, physical AI, or related development workflows including testing, evaluation, deployment, and operations. Portfolio examples involving command-and-control systems, mission-planning interfaces, operational dashboards, or real-time decision-support tools. Ability to design across integrated hardware/software systems. Domain exposure to defense technology, aerospace, robotics, or other regulated, mission-critical, or high-consequence operational environments. San Diego, CA and Washington, D.C. pay range: $230,000 - $350,000 San Mateo, CA pay range: $280,000 - $420,000 Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment) Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information. Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Job Description Job Description 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 . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. Job Description: The Head of Product Design will define and lead the user experience vision for Hivemind, Shield AI's autonomy development platform. This role is responsible for transforming complex autonomy, robotics, AI, and developer workflows into intuitive experiences that enable engineers, operators, and organizations to develop and deploy resilient autonomy at scale. A major focus of this role will be shaping the next generation of AI-native and agent-driven workflows across the autonomy lifecycle. As Hivemind evolves from traditional software tooling toward AI-assisted autonomy development, simulation, evaluation, deployment, and operations, this leader will help invent entirely new ways for users to collaborate with AI systems, agents, and foundation-model-powered tools. The ideal candidate has deep experience designing AI products, developer platforms, or complex technical systems and can translate emerging AI capabilities into workflows that dramatically improve user productivity and outcomes. This is a highly hands-on role as this leader will manage a team of elite designers. During the first 6-12 months, most of the time will be spent conducting user research, designing experiences, prototyping concepts, facilitating product discovery, and partnering directly with Product and Engineering teams to define the future of autonomy development. What you'll do:User Research & Product Discovery Lead customer research efforts across product development, customer engagement, and solutions teams to identify pain points, workflows, unmet needs, and product opportunities. Establish scalable mechanisms for gathering, synthesizing, and communicating user insights throughout the product development lifecycle. Translate customer and operational feedback into actionable product recommendations, requirements, and design initiatives. Product Design & User Experience Design end-to-end workflows across autonomy development, simulation, testing, analysis, deployment, and operations. Create intuitive experiences for highly technical users including autonomy engineers, software developers, operators, and mission planners. Simplify complex system architectures, data flows, infrastructure tooling, and AI workflows into understandable user experiences. Own the end-to-end experience of the product including training, documentation, tutorials, and overall workflows - help our users get the most of the product. Strategic Product Leadership Partner closely with Product Managers to shape product vision, roadmap priorities, and go-to-market strategies. Drive alignment across Product, Engineering, Design, and Executive Leadership through compelling narratives, prototypes, and visual storytelling. Advocate for user-centered decision making in a highly technical and engineering-driven environment. Design Practice, Systems & Organizational Scale Establish and evolve design standards, design systems, UX principles, and product design best practices across Shield AI. Raise the quality bar for product design, usability, consistency, and customer experience. Grow the product design function by mentoring a small team of designers, shaping design culture, and staying actively involved in critical design work. Champion design wins and impact across the organization, highlighting the important role design plays in delivering successful products. AI-Native Product Design & Agentic Workflows Define the future user experience for AI-assisted autonomy development, simulation, testing, deployment, and operational workflows. Design human-AI collaboration models that enable users to effectively leverage AI agents, copilots, and foundation-model-powered systems. Partner with Product, AI Research, and Engineering teams to create new interaction patterns for agent orchestration, autonomy generation, scenario creation, test generation, and mission planning. Develop frameworks for trust, transparency, explainability, and human oversight within AI-assisted workflows. Help establish industry-leading design patterns for Physical AI development platforms and agent-driven software systems. Required qualifications: 10+ years of experience in Product Design, UX Design, Human Factors, or related fields. Proven track record designing and shipping complex technical products, developer tools, platforms, infrastructure software, data-dense applications, or enterprise systems. Deep technical fluency and ability to effectively collaborate with senior engineering leaders on architecture, technical constraints, and software development workflows. Strong experience conducting user research and translating insights into product strategy and design solutions. Proven ability to influence product direction and organizational decisions without direct authority. Strong understanding of AI-powered product experiences, including conversational interfaces, human-in-the-loop workflows, AI-assisted decision making, and agent-based systems. Experience defining new user experiences in ambiguous technology spaces where industry standards and workflows are still emerging. Experience building and retaining high-performing design teams. Strong portfolio showcasing both strategic thinking and hands-on design execution. Preferred qualifications: Background designing developer platforms, SDKs, cloud infrastructure products, DevOps tooling, or engineering productivity tools. Direct work on AI/ML platforms, MLOps workflows, foundation-model-enabled products, copilots, or agentic systems. Familiarity with autonomy, robotics, simulation, digital twins, mission systems, physical AI, or related development workflows including testing, evaluation, deployment, and operations. Portfolio examples involving command-and-control systems, mission-planning interfaces, operational dashboards, or real-time decision-support tools. Ability to design across integrated hardware/software systems. Domain exposure to defense technology, aerospace, robotics, or other regulated, mission-critical, or high-consequence operational environments. San Diego, CA and Washington, D.C. pay range: $230,000 - $350,000 San Mateo, CA pay range: $280,000 - $420,000 Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment) Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information. Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Job Description Job Description 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 . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. Job Description: Shield AI builds intelligent systems that protect service members and civilians. Our products include Hivemind autonomy software and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and our teams support customers and operations across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. The Forward Deployed Engineer, Operations & Sustainment is a highly technical, customer-facing role focused on deploying, supporting, and sustaining Hivemind products in real operating environments. This role bridges field deployment, customer operations, technical troubleshooting, training, and sustainment. This is a travel-intensive role. Candidates must be willing and able to travel at least 50% of the time, including frequent domestic and international trips, customer-site work, test events, training events, and multi-week deployments as program needs require. In this role, you will work directly with customers and internal teams to install, configure, validate, train, troubleshoot, and support Hivemind products. The role requires strong technical judgment, clear customer communication, comfort operating under field pressure, and the discipline to turn field lessons into durable support artifacts: runbooks, supported baselines, evidence packages, known-issue records, escalation paths, customer-safe updates, and product feedback. What you'll do: Deploy with customers on site globally, with a minimum expectation of 50% travel, to support installation, configuration, validation, training, troubleshooting, and sustainment of Hivemind products. Become an expert user of the Hivemind Enterprise software stack, autonomy modules, deployment tooling, supported configurations, and diagnostic workflows. Execute and improve deployment runbooks covering software install, version/configuration validation, licensing or provisioning status, pre-mission checks, log readiness, and acceptance steps. Provide hands-on technical support to customer operators, maintainers, partners, and internal field teams during deployment, test, training, demonstration, and sustainment windows. Capture and organize field evidence for triage, including logs, telemetry, recorded data, screenshots, version/configuration state, asset context, operator notes, mission phase, and environmental constraints. Drive issues through the support flow: intake, severity assessment, ownership, workaround or fix delivery, customer-safe status, closure, and learning loop. Convert recurring field issues, workarounds, customer questions, and training gaps into support tickets, knowledge-base content, known-issue records, runbooks, and product feedback. Partner with engineering, product, program, sustainment, licensing, safety, legal, commercial, and support teams to route issues to the right owner for seamless customer support.Support root-cause investigation and corrective-action validation by reproducing issues, collecting field context, testing updates, and confirming fixes or workarounds. Support Field Service Representative-style obligations when required by contract, including on-site support posture, issue intake, operator assistance, troubleshooting, documentation, escalation, and evidence capture. Projects you might work on: Deploying Hivemind software and autonomy capabilities during customer integration events, exercises, test campaigns, demonstrations, or operational support windows. Building deployment-to-sustainment handoff packages with supported baselines, configuration checklists, evidence checklists, known issues, escalation contacts, and training material. Standing up a repeatable support flow so field issues move from informal chats and ad hoc engineering asks into a durable support hub, severity model, owner route, and closure loop. Troubleshooting field behavior across software, autonomy, networking, telemetry, configuration, sensors, operator workflows, and customer environment constraints. Creating customer-safe documentation that helps operators and maintainers self-serve routine issues while preserving the right escalation path for mission-critical problems. Required qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. 5+ years of experience in field engineering, forward-deployed engineering, applications engineering, systems integration, flight test, robotics support, unmanned systems operations, technical operations, customer deployment, or a similar hands-on technical role. Strong technical background in software engineering, systems integration, or autonomy-adjacent systems. Proficiency writing, reading, and debugging modern C++ code. Working proficiency with Python, Bash, or similar scripting for diagnostics, automation, data handling, and field support workflows. Strong troubleshooting skills across Linux or embedded systems, networking, configuration management, logs, telemetry, release packages, sensors or payloads, and operator workflows. Excellent problem-solving, communication, training, expectation-management, and escalation skills in customer-facing environments. Ability to write clear field notes, deployment records, troubleshooting guides, evidence packages, and support updates that engineering and support teams can act on. Willingness and ability to travel at least 50% of the time, including frequent domestic and international travel and multi-week deployments. Ability to operate professionally in lab, flight-test, range, customer-site, and field environments under time pressure. Ability to comply with export-control, security, safety, sensitive-data, customer-site, and mission-specific operating requirements. Preferred qualifications: Experience with autonomy, robotics, defense aviation, unmanned aircraft, deployed defense systems, flight test, payload integration, sensors, operator systems, or edge compute environments. Experience supporting defense, government, allied, or international customers in operational, test, training, or overseas environments. Experience building or scaling a support, field-service, customer-success, sustainment, or applications-engineering function during an early product rollout. Experience with enterprise software deployment, customer support, licensing, provisioning, release management, configuration baselines, or offline/air-gapped operating environments. Hands-on experience with recorded-data analysis, diagnostic tooling, telemetry review, networking tools, system health checks, or support automation. FAA Part 107, military aviation or maintenance background, UAS operator experience, flight-test experience, systems engineering experience, or prior Field Service Representative experience. Experience using GenAI tools to accelerate troubleshooting, documentation, knowledge capture, data review, or support workflow automation. Active or prior security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one when required by program or customer need. Senior Engineer: $152000-$228,000 Staff Engineer: $181,000-$272,000 Senior Staff Engineer: $212,000-$318,000 Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment) Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information. Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

Job Description Job Description 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 . Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. Job Description: Shield AI builds intelligent systems that protect service members and civilians. Our products include Hivemind autonomy software and V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and our teams support customers and operations across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. The Forward Deployed Engineer, Operations & Sustainment is a highly technical, customer-facing role focused on deploying, supporting, and sustaining Hivemind products in real operating environments. This role bridges field deployment, customer operations, technical troubleshooting, training, and sustainment. This is a travel-intensive role. Candidates must be willing and able to travel at least 50% of the time, including frequent domestic and international trips, customer-site work, test events, training events, and multi-week deployments as program needs require. In this role, you will work directly with customers and internal teams to install, configure, validate, train, troubleshoot, and support Hivemind products. The role requires strong technical judgment, clear customer communication, comfort operating under field pressure, and the discipline to turn field lessons into durable support artifacts: runbooks, supported baselines, evidence packages, known-issue records, escalation paths, customer-safe updates, and product feedback. What you'll do: Deploy with customers on site globally, with a minimum expectation of 50% travel, to support installation, configuration, validation, training, troubleshooting, and sustainment of Hivemind products. Become an expert user of the Hivemind Enterprise software stack, autonomy modules, deployment tooling, supported configurations, and diagnostic workflows. Execute and improve deployment runbooks covering software install, version/configuration validation, licensing or provisioning status, pre-mission checks, log readiness, and acceptance steps. Provide hands-on technical support to customer operators, maintainers, partners, and internal field teams during deployment, test, training, demonstration, and sustainment windows. Capture and organize field evidence for triage, including logs, telemetry, recorded data, screenshots, version/configuration state, asset context, operator notes, mission phase, and environmental constraints. Drive issues through the support flow: intake, severity assessment, ownership, workaround or fix delivery, customer-safe status, closure, and learning loop. Convert recurring field issues, workarounds, customer questions, and training gaps into support tickets, knowledge-base content, known-issue records, runbooks, and product feedback. Partner with engineering, product, program, sustainment, licensing, safety, legal, commercial, and support teams to route issues to the right owner for seamless customer support.Support root-cause investigation and corrective-action validation by reproducing issues, collecting field context, testing updates, and confirming fixes or workarounds. Support Field Service Representative-style obligations when required by contract, including on-site support posture, issue intake, operator assistance, troubleshooting, documentation, escalation, and evidence capture. Projects you might work on: Deploying Hivemind software and autonomy capabilities during customer integration events, exercises, test campaigns, demonstrations, or operational support windows. Building deployment-to-sustainment handoff packages with supported baselines, configuration checklists, evidence checklists, known issues, escalation contacts, and training material. Standing up a repeatable support flow so field issues move from informal chats and ad hoc engineering asks into a durable support hub, severity model, owner route, and closure loop. Troubleshooting field behavior across software, autonomy, networking, telemetry, configuration, sensors, operator workflows, and customer environment constraints. Creating customer-safe documentation that helps operators and maintainers self-serve routine issues while preserving the right escalation path for mission-critical problems. Required qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. 5+ years of experience in field engineering, forward-deployed engineering, applications engineering, systems integration, flight test, robotics support, unmanned systems operations, technical operations, customer deployment, or a similar hands-on technical role. Strong technical background in software engineering, systems integration, or autonomy-adjacent systems. Proficiency writing, reading, and debugging modern C++ code. Working proficiency with Python, Bash, or similar scripting for diagnostics, automation, data handling, and field support workflows. Strong troubleshooting skills across Linux or embedded systems, networking, configuration management, logs, telemetry, release packages, sensors or payloads, and operator workflows. Excellent problem-solving, communication, training, expectation-management, and escalation skills in customer-facing environments. Ability to write clear field notes, deployment records, troubleshooting guides, evidence packages, and support updates that engineering and support teams can act on. Willingness and ability to travel at least 50% of the time, including frequent domestic and international travel and multi-week deployments. Ability to operate professionally in lab, flight-test, range, customer-site, and field environments under time pressure. Ability to comply with export-control, security, safety, sensitive-data, customer-site, and mission-specific operating requirements. Preferred qualifications: Experience with autonomy, robotics, defense aviation, unmanned aircraft, deployed defense systems, flight test, payload integration, sensors, operator systems, or edge compute environments. Experience supporting defense, government, allied, or international customers in operational, test, training, or overseas environments. Experience building or scaling a support, field-service, customer-success, sustainment, or applications-engineering function during an early product rollout. Experience with enterprise software deployment, customer support, licensing, provisioning, release management, configuration baselines, or offline/air-gapped operating environments. Hands-on experience with recorded-data analysis, diagnostic tooling, telemetry review, networking tools, system health checks, or support automation. FAA Part 107, military aviation or maintenance background, UAS operator experience, flight-test experience, systems engineering experience, or prior Field Service Representative experience. Experience using GenAI tools to accelerate troubleshooting, documentation, knowledge capture, data review, or support workflow automation. Active or prior security clearance, or eligibility to obtain one when required by program or customer need. Senior Engineer: $152000-$228,000 Staff Engineer: $181,000-$272,000 Senior Staff Engineer: $212,000-$318,000 Full-time regular employee offer package: Pay within range listed + Bonus + Benefits + Equity Temporary employee offer package: Pay within range listed above + temporary benefits package (applicable after 60 days of employment) Salary compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location. All offers are contingent on a cleared background and possible reference check. Military fellows and part-time employees are not eligible for benefits. Please speak to your talent acquisition representative for more information. Shield AI is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.