Senior Software Engineer, Autonomous Pilot Integration – Weapons (r5427)

Shield AI Shield AI · Defense · Washington, DC +3 · Flight System Integration

Shield AI is a defense-tech company building autonomy solutions for small platforms operating in multi-agent fleets, often in disconnected environments. This role involves developing and integrating autonomy capabilities for launched effects platforms, owning features from design through operational deployment, and working with various teams and partners to deliver mission-ready software. The engineer will be responsible for writing new autonomy code and integrating it end-to-end on real hardware.

What you'd actually do

  1. develop and integrate autonomy capabilities for launched effects platforms, owning major features from design through operational deployment
  2. work closely with the Autonomy Capabilities and Perception teams, feature crews, autopilot vendors (e.g., PX4, ArduPilot), C2 providers, and customer partners to deliver mission-ready autonomy software
  3. write new autonomy code—such as mission behaviors, platform-specific control, multi-agent coordination, contingencies, and executive autonomy
  4. own it end-to-end from software-in-the-loop, to hardware-in-the-loop, to vehicle-in-the-loop, to live test exercise

Skills

Required

  • software development
  • autonomy
  • integration
  • real-world environments

Nice to have

  • PX4
  • ArduPilot
  • C2 providers

What the JD emphasized

  • own it end-to-end
  • software-in-the-loop, to hardware-in-the-loop, to vehicle-in-the-loop, to live test exercise

Other signals

  • autonomy software
  • multi-agent fleets
  • disconnected or air-gapped environments
  • software-in-the-loop, to hardware-in-the-loop, to vehicle-in-the-loop, to live test exercise