Senior Engineering Manager – Autonomy & Perception (R3035)

Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense technology company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent, autonomous systems. Its products include Hivemind Enterprise—EdgeOS, Pilot, Commander, and Forge—as well as V-BAT and Sentient Vision Systems (wide-area motion imaging software). With offices in San Diego, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kyiv (Ukraine), and Melbourne (Australia), Shield AI’s technology actively supports U.S. and allied operations worldwide.  For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X and Instagram.    

As a senior leader in the Hivemind autonomy organization, you will contribute to an ambitious mission to design, develop, integrate, test, and deploy the world’s best AI Pilot—capable of executing any mission on any platform. Your expertise in one or more core perception technologies, such as state estimation, object detection, classification, tracking, and sensor fusion, will be instrumental in driving this mission forward.

As a people manager, you will lead a high-performing team of multi-skilled autonomy developers, where you’ll:

· Collaborate closely with the product team to clarify and prioritize product requirements.

· Provide clear guidance on scope of work and set achievable goals for the development team.

· Optimize capacity allocation based on business needs to maximize team efficiency and impact.

· Establish a commitment-driven environment where the team can reliably deliver features that exceed customer expectations for the Hivemind product.

In your role, you’ll also play a critical part in building organizational talent by partnering with talent acquisition throughout the hiring process (recruiting, resume screening, interviews, onboarding) and nurturing a culture of excellence by setting clear job expectations, engaging in performance reviews, and fostering continuous feedback. With a servant leadership mindset, you’ll support team members’ growth in skill development, career advancement, promotion planning, and employee recognition.

What You'll Do:

• Manage a team of 5 to 7 autonomy developers, splitting your time equally between leadership and hands-on development.
• Develop production-quality autonomy software in C++ for deployment on military platforms, ensuring code robustness, efficiency, and scalability.
• Provide technical leadership in the design and architecture of key perception framework components.
• Drive product roadmap execution by leading feature decomposition, capacity planning, and agile development processes.
• Balance rigor and speed in a fast-paced, collaborative, and continuous development environment.

Required Qualifications:

• Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree; or 9 years and a master’s degree; or 7 years with a PhD; or equivalent work experience.
• Proven experience as a people manager overseeing a team of C++ developers.
• High proficiency in modern C++ and design patterns with a strong record in a core perception discipline (e.g., state estimation, sensor fusion, object tracking, SLAM) or another autonomy field.
• Experience across the full lifecycle of perception software development, testing, and deployment to edge computing environments.
• Familiarity with CI pipelines and automated testing frameworks for C++.
• Strong proficiency with Linux operating systems.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Previous experience delivering autonomy software (C++) to DoD customers.
• Familiarity with navigational sensors (IMU, GPS, barometers, magnetometers).
• Experience with GPS-denied navigation technologies.
• Understanding of EO/IR sensors and object detection algorithms.
• Professional experience deploying state estimation algorithms (KF, EKF, UKF).

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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.

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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.